Monthly unemployment rate down in April

Published: Thu 7 May 2026, 11:46 AM

The unemployment rate increased by 0.2% on an annual basis from April 2025 to April 2026, according to newly released figures by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The monthly Youth Unemployment Rate for people aged 15024 was down from 11.2% in March to 9.8% in April 2026.

This dropped significantly for people aged 25-74, sitting at 4.1% in April 2026, down 0.1% from March.

When the results were broken down by gender, the monthly unemployment rate for men was down by 0.2% from March.

For women, there was a decrease 0f 0.1% from March 2026, up from 4.4% in April 2025.

Conor Delves, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section of the CSO, said: “The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for all people aged 15-74 years in April 2026 was 4.8%, down from 5.0% in March 2026, and up from 4.6% in April 2025.

“In April 2026, the unemployment rate for males was 4.5%, and for females was 5.2%.

“The seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed was 140,300 in April 2026, compared with 146,200 in March 2026. There was a rise of 6,100 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in April 2026 when compared with April 2025.

“The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed males decreased to 69,200 in April 2026, compared with 72,700 in March 2026. The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed females in April 2026 was 71,200, down from 73,500 in March 2026.”