Ireland's April unemployment up 28.2 pct

Source: Xinhua | 2020-05-09

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to have a significant impact on the Irish labor market in April, according to the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In April, Ireland's unemployment rate reached 28.2 percent, up by 12.7 percentage points compared with the revised March unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, showed the CSO figures Friday.

The April unemployment rate was calculated by including those who were in receipt of the government's COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment, said the CSO, adding that a total of 602,107 people in the country were in receipt of such a payment at the last week of April.

The payment is an emergency plan introduced by the government on March 16 to support those who have lost their jobs due to the impact of the pandemic.

Under the plan, each qualified individual will get a weekly payment of 350 euros (nearly 380 U.S. dollars) from the government for an initial period of 12 weeks.

On Thursday, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, while addressing the lower house of the parliament, said that the payment will be extended beyond mid-June when it is supposed to end.