The latest employment figures have shown some 754,000 are currently in employment in Northern Ireland - one of the highest estimates on record.

Unemployment levels are also at record low, with the Labour Force Survey estimating that 41,000 people or 5.1% of the population were unemployed for the period January – March 2003, also representing the lowest rate and level on record for Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland unemployment statistics are lower than four other UK regions: London (6.8%), North East (6.4%), West Midlands (6.0%), Scotland (5.9%) and identical to the rate in Yorkshire & the Humber (5.1%).

Commenting on the figures, Economy Minister Ian Pearson said: “At 5.1%, the unemployment rate was down 0.9 percentage points compared to the same period last year, and is 0.6 percentage points lower than the previous quarter. These figures reflect the lowest unemployment rate on record.

“Falling unemployment plus high employment levels are encouraging signs that the Northern Ireland economy is performing robustly in the face of uncertainty.

“It is also notable that there are 43,000 more people in the labour market as a whole compared with last year, indicating increasing levels of participation across the economy. A key element of current government policy is to encourage those on welfare programmes (such as Incapacity Benefit) to move into the labour market and these increases in employment provide further opportunities for this to happen.”

However the Minister was at pains to point out the problems within the local textile industry, as experienced by the recent job losses at Desmonds. He concluded: “The global economic situation remains uncertain and some sectors are more likely to experience difficulties than others as indicated by the recent redundancies in the Textile and Clothing sector.

"The evidence that employment potential remains relatively strong in Northern Ireland as a whole does not detract from the local difficulties being experienced by communities in Irvinestown, Swatragh and Omagh.

"However it is encouraging that the wider employment picture is still a positive one. Indeed there are other sectors where Northern Ireland can maximise its advantages, as evidenced yesterday in the substantial investment in the new Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technologies which will help stimulate the restructuring of the local economy by exploiting new technologies.”

(MB)