Slight increase in Live Register

The number of Westmeath people on the Live Register rose slightly last month, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).New figures from the CSO have revealed that there were 10,391 Westmeath people signing on on January 31, 157 more than at the end of December. Mullingar area office (5,050, +72) recorded the biggest increase, followed by Athlone (4,144, +67) and Castlepollard (1,197, +8). On the same date last year there were 10,370 Westmeath people on the Live Register.The biggest increase occurred in the amongst males over 25 (5,446, +86) with Mullingar recording the biggest increase (2,687, +39). Athlone (2,131, +37) and Castlepollard (628, +10) also recorded increases. The number of females over the age of 25 on the dole also rose (3,252, +23). However, while Mullingar (1,500, +17) and Athlone (1,355, +7) both saw increases, the number of over 25 females signing on in Castlepollard (390) fell by one.According to the CSO, there were 1693 under 25s on the dole in Westmeath on January 31, a monthly increase of 38. Young males (972, +33) accounted for most of the increase, but there was also a slight increase in the number of women under 25 (721, +5).Nationally, the number of people on the Live Register at the end of January was 429,396, a year on year decrease of 10,193, or 2.3%. While the number of people signing on has fallen slightly for seven consecutive months, the standardised unemployment rate of 14.6% remained unchanged from December. The number of long term unemployed was 189,857, a 3.3% increase on the same period last year.