The number of benefit claimants on the Live Register has fallen again, with an additional 1,400 coming off the register in February.
This reduced the seasonally adjusted total to 182,500, the lowest level since January 2008.
In unadjusted terms, this represented an annual decrease of 14,318 (7.3 per cent).
The register is not a measure of unemployment, as people with part-time work can be entitled to benefits, but it does broadly track improvements in the labour market.
Separate monthly unemployment statistics published this week put the State’s headline rate at 4.8 per cent in February, which is nearly 3 percentage points below the euro zone average of 7.4 per cent.
Surge
The latest Live Register shows the number of males signing on fell by 1,000 (1 per cent) in February while females decreased by 400 (0.5 per cent).
Since 2014, the Irish economy has grown by more than 50 per cent, largely as a result of a spike in investment and employment in the private sector. The surge has created more than 400,000 jobs.
The CSO's latest Labour Force Survey shows employment in the Irish economy surpassed 2.36 million for the first time in the fourth quarter of last year.
This is 80,000 higher than the boom-time high of 2.23 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2007 and reflects the current strength of the economy.
However, the State has a bigger population now and a larger workforce than in 2007 and therefore the employment rate – the proportion of adults with jobs – is still below the pre-crash level.
