New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in April from a revised 5% in March after data for the preceding months were revised up.
The CSO said the jobless rate for March was revised up to 5% from 4.7% previously, with similar revisions applied to data for January and February.
The jobless rate has remained between 4.6% and 5.1% for the last year.
On an annual basis, the unemployment rate increased from 4.6% in April last year to 4.8% in April this year, the CSO noted.
Today’s figures show that the unemployment rate for men was 4.5% in April, down from 4.7% in both March of this year and April of last year.
The jobless rate for women stood at 5.2%, down from the revised rate of 5.3% in March and up from a revised rate of 4.4% in April 2025.
The figures also reveal that the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed was 140,300 in April compared with 146,200 in March.
There was a rise of 6,100 in the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in April of this year compared with the same month last year.
Meanwhile, the monthly youth unemployment rate was 9.8% in April, down from a revised rate of 11.2% in March and the lowest level since May 2022.
Commenting on today’s CSO figures, Virginia Sondergeld, economist at hiring platform Indeed, said the new figures come amid ongoing global volatility with the conflict in the Middle East prompting concerns over the potential medium to long-term impact of high oil prices, disruption to shipping and inflationary pressures.
She said the Irish economy continues to have strong fundamentals and has proved resilient in recent years when faced with global shocks, but remains particularly exposed to the impact of high oil prices should the US-Iran conflict not be fully resolved as now hoped.
“At times of such extreme uncertainty and unpredictability, businesses are likely to delay expansion plans and slow or freeze hiring amid rising costs with the potential impact of such measures emerging over time,” she said.
