The unemployment rate here rose slightly to 4.2% in June from a near record low of 4% a month earlier, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show today.
The jobless rate has stayed between 4% and 4.6% for more than two years, indicating that the economy is at or very near full employment, where just about everyone who wants a job has one.
The record low of 3.9% was last reached in 2001.
Today's CSO figures show that on an annual basis, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in June from a rate of 4.4% the same month last year.
The CSO said the jobless rate in June was 4% for men, up from the revised rate of 3.9% in May and down from a rate of 4.5% in June of last year.
The monthly unemployment rate for women was 4.3%, up from the revised rate of 4.2% in May and higher than the rate of 4.2% in June 2023.
Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate increased to 8.1% from a rate of 7.7% in May, the CSO said.
Today's figures show that the seasonally adjusted number of people who were unemployed stood at 117,100 in June, compared with 113,000 in May. There was a decrease of 4,100 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in June when compared with a year earlier.
