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Ireland sees continuing fall in unemployment

Xinhua, May 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ireland saw a fall in the unemployment rate to 8.4 percent and a monthly drop of 3,700 in the number of unemployed people last month, according to official figures on Wednesday.

The figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) also showed that there are 25,700 fewer people unemployed compared to 12 months ago.

Over the past four years since launching the Action Plan for Jobs, Ireland has seen steady progress in this area, with unemployment falling from 15.1 percent to 8.4 percent.

Ireland's Jobs Minister Richard Bruton welcomed the continuing fall in unemployment but cautioned against major challenges ahead.

"There is no room for complacency. There are many significant risks to our continuing recovery, and yesterday we saw the EU Commission downgrade its forecasts for EU growth," he said.

The EU Commission on Tuesday cut its 2016 growth forecast for the eurozone economy. It now sees eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 at 1.6 percent from a previous forecast of 1.7 percent growth. It also lowered its 2017 forecast to 1.8 percent from 1.9 percent.

"All of this highlights the need to continue making changes in the areas over which we have control, in particular, to do everything possible to improve our international competitiveness," he added. Enditem