The Employment Service registered 8,717 people freshly out of a job in September, 34.4% more than in August and 3.4% fewer than in September 2011. Most of the newly registered were those whose fixed term employment contracts expired.

Meanwhile, 5,524 found a job or got self-employed, which makes an increase of 38.2% from August and a rise of 2.2% on the same month a year ago. This also makes for the second biggest change in status for the unemployed this year.

An average of 109,086 were registered as unemployed in the first nine months of the year, down 1.2% on the same period last year.