The country's monthly unemployment rate was unchanged at 5% in December, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show today.
The CSO said the jobless rate was unchanged from the revised rate of 5% in November and up from 4.5% in December 2024.
Today's figures show that the monthly unemployment rate for men in December was 5.1%, up from the revised rate of 5% in November 2025, and up from 4.8% recorded in December 2024.
Meanwhile, the monthly unemployment rate for women was 4.9%, down from 5% in November and up from 4.1% in December the previous year.
The CSO said the monthly youth unemployment rate came in at 14% in December, up from a revised rate of 13.7% the previous month.
Today's CSO figures show that the seasonally adjusted number of people who were unemployed was 148,700 in December, compared with 147,300 in November.
There was an increase of 19,700 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in December 2025 when compared with December 2024.
Jack Kennedy, senior economist at hiring platform Indeed, said the monthly unemployment rate averaged just under 4.8% during 2025, up from 4.3% in 2024.
He said the monthly figures for last year show the ongoing softening of the labour market resulted in a gradual increase in the monthly unemployment level from 4.4 or 4.5% in the early part of the year to 5.1% in September, 5% in October, 5% in November and 5% in December.
"As previously pointed out, it was predicted that the unemployment rate would increase to close to 5% by the end of 2025 before steadying. The focus now will be on whether it does settle at this level in the coming months or continues to increase gradually as the year develops," Jack Kennedy said.
He also said that despite concerns in relation to recent increases in youth unemployment, Ireland continues to benefit from high levels of labour market participation and an expanding workforce driven by inward migration.
"Relative to the EU, Ireland also continues to have one of the lowest unemployment rates, with the latest data showing overall figures of 6.4% in the euro area and 6% in the EU," the economist said.
"The employment rate in Ireland in the third quarter of 2025 was 79.9% compared with 75.8% across the euro area and 76.2% in the EU," he noted.
He also said that Indeed's latest data shows that the year-on-year wage growth level remains above 3% in Ireland, with a figure of 3.6% for November.
"Employers should expect recruitment to continue to be challenging and to experience pressure from employees on pay as real income levels drop due to inflation in groceries, rent and house prices," he stated
