There has been another slight fall in the number of people on the Live Register.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) says there were almost 429,000 people signing on in February.

That is a monthly drop of 1,400 people.

It means the rate of unemployment stands at 14.1% compared to 15% in February of last year.

The figures also show that long-term unemployment fell from 9.1% to 8.2% over the year to the 4th quarter of 2012.

Seasonally adjusted breakdown

In February 55.8% (239,409) of all people on the Register were short-term claimants.

On a seasonally adjusted basis the Live Register showed a monthly decrease of 1,200 males in February, and females decreased by 200 in the same period.

There were 89,780 casual and part-time workers on the Live Register in February, which represents 20.9% of the total - this compares with 20.1% a year earlier.

The number of male claimants dropped by 10,595 - down 3.7% - to 272,855 over the year and female claimants increased slightly by 49 to 156,021.

This all compares with a decrease of 8,356 (-2.9%) to 283,450 for males and an increase of 3,479 (+2.3%) to 155,972 for females in the year to February of 2012.