IRELAND WAS SECOND only to Portugal in terms of employment growth in the third quarter of this year according to the EU.

The Eurostat figures record that employment grew by 1.1 per cent in Ireland between July and September, just shy of the 1.2 per cent growth recorded in Portugal. The two states were the only nations to grow employment by over a percentage point with the UK recording employment growth of 0.6 per cent.

Overall, employment across the 28 EU states remained unchanged compared to the previous three month period with 10 nations observing further drops in employment while six countries recorded no change.

Estonia and Lithuania recorded the largest decreases in employment, falling by 1.5 per cent.

The lack of job growth across the EU can be plainly observed when comparing the figures to this time last year and seeing that employment has fallen by 0.8 per cent. The eurozone on its own has fared slightly better but still recorded a fall in employment of 0.3 per cent.

Eurostat estimates that, in the third quarter of 2013, 223.2 million men and women were employed in the EU, a figure that includes both employed and self-employed workers.

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Although employment figures are different from numbers on the Live Register, the people signing onto the Live Register fell by over 5,000 last month according to the most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office.