The male unemployment rate was flat at 12.2%, while the rate for women rose by 0.1 percentage point from October to 14.1%.

"An overview of age groups shows the registered unemployment rate only fell among those aged 50 or more, which is in part due to a drop in the number of employed and in part due to an increase in the number of people in employment," the Statistics Office reports.

The 15-24-year-olds remain the hardest hit age group. Their joblessness increased by a further 0.6 percentage points from October to 32.4%.

The total of people out of a job rose to 119,313 in November, up by 0.5% compared to the month before and up 7% year-on-year.

The number of people in employment rose by 300 from October, but fell by almost 6,800 compared to November 2012 to just over 798,200, of whom 55% were men. The number of self-employed rose by 3,300 y/y.

As many as 2,000 got their first job in November, 78.5% of whom were under 30 years of age. However, most of them (over 1,400) were employed on fixed-term contracts.