The number of people in unemployment fell by 40,000 last year, leaving the unemployment rate at 7.1%.
This is the lowest unemployment rate since the second quarter of 2008.
The figures come from the latest Quarterly National Household Survey, the official measure of employment and unemployment in the State, carried out by the Central Statistics Office.
The number of people in work increased by 3.3% last year, or 65,000. This brought the number of people in employment to 2,048,100.
This was the 17th quarter in a row in which employment increased.
There were 147,000 people classed as unemployed at the end of 2016, a drop of 21% from the same period a year previously.
The number of unemployed people has fallen on an annual basis in every quarter since the end of September 2012.
The biggest increase in employment came in the construction sector, which added 11,000 jobs.
The long-term unemployment rate – those who have been out of work for more than a year - fell from 4.7% to 3.6% over the course of the year.
At 79,700, the number of long-term unemployed represents 54% of all unemployed people.
