The latest quarterly national household survey which was published by the Central Statistics Office on 7 June 2000, shows that the unemployment rate for the south-east, which includes Waterford, has declined from 7.8% recorded in the first quarter 1999 to 5.8% in the first quarter 2000. This reduction of 2 percentage points in the unemployment rate has been well ahead of the overall 1.1 percentage point reduction for the State as a whole. During the same period employment in the south-east increased by 6.2%, a similar rate of growth to the rate of jobs growth nationally. The CSO does not publish unemployment rates from the QNHS, or from the live register, on a county basis.