Ireland's unemployment rate rose to its highest level since the country's financial crisis began in the first quarter of 2011, jumping to 14.8% from 14.5% in the previous three months, data has showed.
According to the CSO quarterly national household survey for the first quarter of 2012, employment fell by 1.0%, or 18,100 people over the course of 12 months from Q1 in 2011.
While employment rose by 11,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the final quarter of 2011, the first increase in four years, it fell by 7,300 in the first quarter, denting hopes that job losses may be on a downward trend.
Unemployment has risen slightly in the first quarter of 2012, with 309,000 people now out of work.
The seasonally adjusted figure for unemployment is now at 14.8% of the workforce.
The last quarter of 2011 showed an unemployment rate of 14.5% - a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.3% percentage point.
A high number of departures from the public service at the beginning of this year impacted on the figures.
There are now 1.79 million people working in the labour force, the lowest figure since 2003.
The CSO say a large number of retirements and staff reductions in various areas of the public sector is reflected in some of their findings for this quarter, in terms of the number of people at work.
The survey also found long term unemployment is rising, jumping from 7.8% in 2011 to 8.9% at the beginning of 2012.
Kieran Walsh of the CSO said while the figures appeared to be stabilising compared to dramatic falls in employment in recent years, the "line is still downward".
Economists forecast the unemployment rate will stand at 14.1 percent at the end of the year and predicted it would fall to 13.5 percent by the end of 2013.
