Live Register Up By 33,000

The seasonally adjusted Live Register total increased from 293,100 in December to 326,100 in January, an increase of 33,000.

In the year to January 2009, there was an unadjusted increase of 146,412 (up by over 80%).

This compares with an unadjusted increase of 120,987 (up 71.0%) in the year to December 2008.

The monthly increase in the seasonally adjusted series consisted of an increase of 22,900 men and an increase of 10,100 women.

The standardised unemployment rate in January was 9.2%. This compares with 6.3% in the third quarter of 2008, the latest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from the Quarterly National Household Survey.

In the month, the estimated number of casual and part-time workers on the Live Register was 22,807 men and 22,619 women.