The unemployment rate in February was 14.2 per cent, unchanged from January, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed today.

The seasonally adjusted Live Register total now stands at 438,300, a fall of 1,800 or 0.4 per cent compared to January.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Live Register showed monthly decreases of 1,100 males and 600 females in February 2012.

In unadjusted terms, there were 439,422 people signing on the Live Register in February 2012. This represents a decrease of 4,877 or 1.1 per cent over the year.

The number of male claimants decreased by 8,356 to 283,450 over the year, while female claimants increased by 3,479 to 155,972.

This compares with increases of 939 and 6,404 for males and females respectively in the year to February 2011.

The number of long term claimants on the Live Register in February 2012 was 184,555. This is an overall annual increase of 20,730 or 12.7 per cent.

The number of male long-term claimants increased by 10 per cent in the year to February 2012 while the number of females who were long-term unemployed increased by 19 per cent.

In February 58 per cent or 254,867 of all claimants on the Live Register were short-term claimants down from 63 per cent in the same month last year.

The number of those aged 25 and over on the Register continued to slow increasing by .6 per cent in the year. The number of those aged under-25 fell by 8.7 per cent, continuing a downward trend in this age group.

This has led to the percentage of persons aged under 25 on the Live Register falling to 17.1 per cent in February 2012 from 19.5 per cent two years earlier.

There were 36,102 new registrants on the Live Register in February 2012. Males accounted for 20,453 or 56.7 per cent of all new registrants with females comprising 15,649 or 43.3 per cent of the number.

On average 5,113 male and 3,912 female new registrants joined the Live Register each week of the month.