The Workers’ Party has described the increase of more than 31% in the Cork City unemployment rate over the past 12 months as “absolutely appalling”.

Northside Workers Party spokesman Denis O’Connor said that the Live Register figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office for the month of May should be an urgent wake-up call for the government and all the relevant state agencies involved with employment as the jobless figure for Cork City has reached almost  10,000.

The CSO figures show that 9,368 people were signing on for Jobseekers Allowance and other unemployment payments last month, an increase of 2,217 since the same time last year and representing a 31% increase in the city’s unemployment rate.

Mr. O’Connor said the government should hang their heads in shame at the unemployment rate in the city, which he pointed out was considerably greater on the Northside of the city.

“The people of Cork, and particularly the people of the Northside, do not want to hear more hand wringing from the government or talk of task forces to deal with individual large redundancies.  They want action and they want it now.  This should be a very clear warning to government and to everyone that there is a crisis in the making and action is needed now before we plunge back to the appalling situation that existed in the 1980s”, said Denis O’Connor.

Issued Wednesday, 11th June 2008