Figures from the Central Statistics Office show a sharp rise in the unemployment rate.
The quarterly national household survey for the final three months of 2010 shows that employment dropped by 64,500 or 3.4% compared with a year earlier.
The number of people at work was 1.82 million. Unemployment increased by 31,600 or 11.8% over the year to 299,000. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the quarter climbed to 14.7%.
As a result of the latest figures, the CSO has sharply raised its estimate of the current unemployment rate from the 13.5% contained in February's Live Register figures to 14.6%.
The number of people unemployed was unchanged between the third and fourth quarters of 2010, but as there is usually a fall in unemployment in the final quarter of the year, this led to an increase in the seasonally adjusted rate.
The figures contained in the quarterly national household survey also show a rise in long-term unemployment, with the rate increasing from 4.1% of the workforce a year earlier to 7.3%. The CSO said those out of work for more than a year now made up just over half of the total number unemployed. This is the first time this has happened since the late 1990s.
The male unemployment rate at the end of 2010 was 17.3%, and the rate for females was 10.1%.
The percentage of those employed between the ages of 15 and 64 fell from 61.1% to 59.4% in 2010. It is the first time the employment rate has fallen below 60% since early 1998.
The male employment rate fell to 63.1%, from levels of 77% and above during 2006 and 2007. The change is most pronounced for males aged between 20-24, where employment had been as high as 76% in 2006. At the end of last year, this was 45%. The CSO says, however, that the pace of decline in employment is slowing.
Construction showed the largest fall in employment, down 25,600 over 12 months. Employment in the education and transportation sectors showed small increases over the year.
The number of non-Irish nationals at work fell by almost 14% during 2010 to 220,000. The number of non-Irish workers unemployed was 49,600, with the unemployment rate in this sector rising to 18.4%.
The total labour force stood at 2.12 million people at the end of 2010, down 1.5% or 33,000 from a year earlier.
Euro zone returns to annual jobs growth in Q4
Euro zone employment grew year-on-year for the first time since the financial crisis in the last months of 2010, driven by job creation in the region's core as its periphery struggled.
Employment in the fourth quarter rose by 0.1% from the third quarter and 0.3% year-on-year, offering signs of a strengthening labour market that one analyst said should boost growth in consumer spending in Germany, the region's dominant economy.
It was the first annual increase in the typically lagging indicator since the third quarter of 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a global slump and the euro zone's worst recession in decades.
The number of employed increased in the October-December period to 144.8 million, the data from statistics office Eurostat showed.
The agriculture, financial services, public administration, health and trade and transport sectors added jobs over the quarter, while headcounts in construction and manufacturing fell.
Employment increased in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Slovakia, but declined in debt-laden southern European countries Portugal and Spain, as well as in Finland and Slovenia. No data was made available for euro zone bail-out fund recipients Ireland and Greece.
