New jobs in the public sector continued to underpin employment growth in the first quarter of 2003. According to the Central Statistics Office's Q1 Quarterly National Household Survey, employment grew by 26,500 or 1.5% to 1,772,000 during the first three months of the year.
The CSO said this increase was accounted for entirely by employment growth in the education, health, public administration and defence sectors. The annual increase was equally divided between men and women.
The CSO said the unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2003 stood at 4.6%. This compared with a 4.4% rate the same time last year. There were 84,900 people unemployed in the first three months of the year. This represented an increase of 4,900 in the year and 800 in the quarter.
Ireland's employment rate has continued to outperform its European Union counterparts. Between the second quarter of 2001 and 2002, the country's employment level grew by 1.9% compared to an EU average of just 0.7%. Ireland's labour force increased by 2.5% compared with a rise of 1% for the EU.
The CSO said that employment grew in all sectors of the economy apart from agriculture, forestry, fishing and other production industries. The biggest growth areas were in health, education and public administration and defence.
The levels in employment increased in all regions with the exception of Dublin, were the numbers employed fell 0.2%. The unemployment rate was lowest in the mid-east region and highest in the border region.
The survey also showed that the average working week was 37.2 hours during the first quarter of 2003 compared with 37.6 houses in 2002 and 37.8 hours in 2001.
