Official figures show an underlying drop in the number of people signing on the Live Register in January, while the number of redundancies also dropped.
The Central Statistics Office said the seasonally adjusted figure for January dropped by 6,900 to 439,000, while the estimated unemployment rate fell from 13.6% in December to 13.4%. The seasonally adjusted figure had crept up in December for the first time since August.
The unadjusted figure rose by 5,598 to 442,667, but this was a smaller rise than usually recorded in January, which meant that the seasonally adjusted figure fell. It is also just 1.3% higher compared with January last year.
The Live Register itself includes some part-time and seasonal workers and does not measure unemployment.
The CSO also said that there were 46,115 new claimants on the Live Register in January, up from 42,615 in December. 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 more than 5,200 last month. Long-term claimants now make up almost 37% of the total number of people on the Live Register.
The number of Irish nationals on the Live Register has increased by 8,600 over the past 12 months, but the number of non-Irish people signing on has fallen by more than 2,800.
Separate figures show a sharp drop in the number of redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment in January. 4,893 lay-offs were recorded with the department in the month, down 25.5% from the 6,571 in January last year.
