New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March was 4.3%, up from the rate of 4.2% recorded in February and from 4.1% in March of last year.
The CSO noted that the unemployment rate for men in March was 4%, while it stood at 4.6% for women.
Today's CSO figures show that the seasonally adjusted number of people who were unemployed reached 122,100 in March, up from 120,200 in February.
There was an increase of 9,400 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in March compared to a year earlier, they also revealed.
Meanwhile the youth unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.5% in March from the previous month.
Unemployment had fallen to a near record low of 4.1% in early 2023, but rose gradually to reach 4.6% in January before starting to fall again.
Commenting on today's CSO figures, Jack Kennedy, senior economist at global jobs platform Indeed, said that overall, the Irish labour market remained resilient in the first quarter of 2024.
"Barring any other major shocks to the economy, the outlook for the remainder of the year is positive, although it is possible that there will be some further modest softening," the economist said.
He noted that Irish job postings on Indeed were down to 14% above pre-pandemic levels at the end of March. This compares to 17% at the end of February 2024 and 22% in January. This is also down from a high of 65% recorded in February 2022.
"We expect to see job postings continue to gradually recede to levels similar to those prevailing before the pandemic," he added.
