Over 20,000 people in Clare are currently receiving some form of unemployment support.
The majority of those are receiving the State’s temporary pandemic support payment, while thousands more here are also receiving wage top-ups.
Today’s CSO figures make for grim reading.
The headline statistic shows that, including COVID-19 related adjustments, the national unemployment rate stands at 28.2%.
Here, there are now over 5,600 people on the live register, around 1,000 more than at the same time last year.
On top of that, a further 14,600 people are in receipt of the pandemic unemployment support, introduced since the outbreak of COVID-19.
It means the total number in Clare covered by both supports stands at 20,326, but thousands more here are seeing their wages topped by the State.
There are no county-specific figures for this, but across Ireland 425,000 people are receiving money under the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme.
Across Ireland, the number of people now receiving income support stands at 1,244,211.
