The unemployment rate in the South East has fallen to 6.7%.

According to the Labour Force Survey, 13,400 people in the region were out of work in the first quarter of the year.

That’s down from 14,000 at the same time last year.

However, the South East continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the country. The Midlands is second at 6.2%

The national rate is 4.8%.

Commenting on the report, Jim Dalton, Statistician, said: “The LFS is the official source of data for employment and unemployment in Ireland. Key findings show that in Q1 2019, employment totalled 2,301,900, up 3.7% or 81,200 from the same quarter in 2018. When adjusted for seasonal factors, employment increased by 1.5% or 35,200 from Q4 2018.

“There were 114,400 people unemployed in Q1 2019, and this was down 14.0% or 18,600 from Q1 2018. When seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate decreased from 5.6% to 5.0% over the quarter, while the seasonally adjusted number of persons unemployed decreased by 14,300 to 120,300.

“Long term unemployment, which refers to those persons unemployed for one year or more, accounted for 35.7% of total unemployment in Q1 2019.

“In Q1 2019, the total number of persons in the labour force was up 2.7% or 62,600 to 2,416,300 from Q1 2018. The number of persons not in the labour force was 1,480,200 and that was up 0.7% or 9,900 from a year earlier”.