Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the number of people signing on the Live Register increased in December following falls in the previous three months.
The seasonally adjusted figure was 444,000, up 5,200 from November. The headline figure, which does not take account of seasonal factors, jumped by just over 12,000 to 437,079.
The estimated unemployment rate in December crept up to 13.4% from 13.2% in November. The CSO said the average rate for 2010 was 13.3%, up from 11.8% in 2009 and the highest rate since 1994.
The Live Register includes some part-time seasonal and casual workers. It is not designed to measure unemployment, but is regarded as the most up-to-date figures on the state of the jobs market.
Bloxham economist Alan McQuaid said HSE redundancies are likely to have contributed to the December jump, while extreme weather conditions in the month are also likely to have been a factor.
The CSO also said that there were 42,615 new claimants on the Live Register in December, up from 40,787 in November. This figure is not the same as the monthly change in the Live Register, which is affected by people closing claims and moving between different schemes.
The number of people signing on for more than a year, however, rose by almost 5,000 last month. Long-term claimants make up a third of the total number of people on the Live Register. The number of people signing on for more than a year has increased by more than 60% over the past 12 months.
The CSO figures also show that there were 76,645 non-Irish people signing on last month, up 1,863 from November, though down slightly from December 2009.
2010 lay-offs down more than 20%
Separate figures show that the number of redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment fell by 23.7% last year.
58,731 lay-offs were recorded with the department in 2010. This compared with just over 77,000 in 2009, but it was still well above the 40,607 recorded in 2008.
For December, lay-offs were 2,870, down just over 30% from the same month in 2009.
