New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that Ireland’s unemployment rate in March was 4.7%, up from 4.6% in February.<\/p>\n
The CSO data shows that on an annual basis, the unemployment rate is up from 4.5% in March last year.<\/p>\n
Today’s figures show that the monthly unemployment rate for men at 4.7% was unchanged from February this year, and up from 4.5% in March 2025.<\/p>\n
The monthly unemployment rate for women was 4.7%, up from the revised rate of 4.5% last month, and up from 4.6% the same time last year.<\/p>\n
The CSO added that the monthly youth unemployment rate rose to 12.5%, up from 12.4% the previous month<\/p>\n
According to the CSO, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for all people aged 15-74 years in March 2026 was 4.7%, up from 4.6% in February 2026, and up from 4.5% in March 2025.<\/p>\n
Commenting on today’s release, Conor Delves, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section, said: “The seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed was 140,000 in March 2026, compared with 138,900 people in February 2026.<\/p>\n
“There was a rise of 7,000 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in March 2026 when compared with March 2025,” he added.<\/p>\n
Jack Kennedy, senior economist at hiring platform Indeed, said this month’s 4.7% figure comes at a time of extreme global volatility amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, with the wider impact of the crisis being closely monitored.<\/p>\n
“Like other European countries, Ireland is in a relatively good position to absorb some of the initial shock, but a sustained period of high energy costs, inflationary pressure, industrial strain and currency and markets volatility, would be far more challenging,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In such a scenario, business leaders are likely to halt growth plans and investment decisions, which could have a direct impact on job levels. Meanwhile, employees are likely to demand wage increases as living costs rise,” said Mr Kennedy.<\/p>\n
He said the latest data from the Indeed’s Irish Job Postings Index, a real-time measure of employer demand, shows the level of job postings is down to 2% above the February 1, 2020 pre-pandemic baseline, having been at or close to 8% above the pre-pandemic baseline throughout January and February.<\/p>\n
This softening of the jobs market has been ongoing for an extended period and suggests a slowdown in job creation, according to Mr Kennedy.<\/p>\n
This is yet to have had a measurable impact on the labour market, which has remained tight due a shortage of workers for existing jobs in many sectors and a high level of employment and labour market participation, he added.<\/p>\n
“While there are signs that the conflict in the Middle East may end soon, the fallout from the current hostilities is likely to last many months,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Policymakers and employers will be hoping that a deescalation is possible in the near to medium-term, which, if maintained, would allow for greater certainty and the return of the conditions needed for growth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that Ireland’s unemployment rate in March was 4.7%, up from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-376955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}