The counties where high pay and high unemployment coexist
The best-paid county in Ireland also has its largest Live Register. In June 2026, 48,806 people in Dublin were claiming a jobseeker's payment — 28.7% of every claimant in the State, more than the Border, West and Midland regions put together. Neither fact is surprising on its own, and together they say almost nothing, because a place with far more people in it will have more of everything.
Turning the counts into shares is what makes them comparable, and that is where the pattern stops being obvious. One qualification belongs here rather than at the end, because it limits every number that follows. The Live Register is not an unemployment rate. It counts people claiming Jobseeker's Benefit or Jobseeker's Allowance, which includes part-time and seasonal workers entitled to claim while working, and excludes unemployed people who do not qualify for either payment. The CSO also publishes it by region rather than by county, so the eight regional figures here are the finest geography available: every county inside a region carries its region's share, and genuine variation within a region is invisible.
Every county, on both measures
The claimant share below is the regional Live Register count divided by the region's Census 2022 population. Population has grown since 2022, so each figure slightly overstates the true current share, and it overstates it most in the fastest-growing regions. The salary column is the 2024 median for the county itself. Counties are marked as better or lower paid against the midpoint of the 26 county medians, €42,305, which splits the country in half — the national median of €44,816 is weighted by where people live and leaves far fewer counties above it.
| County | Median salary | Region | Claimants per 100 residents | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dublin | €49,224 | Dublin | 3.4 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Kildare | €48,431 | Mid-East | 3.1 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Wicklow | €46,527 | Mid-East | 3.1 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Cork | €46,416 | South-West | 2.7 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Meath | €46,272 | Mid-East | 3.1 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Limerick | €44,498 | Mid-West | 4.9 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Clare | €44,081 | Mid-West | 4.9 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Galway | €43,995 | West | 3.2 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Laois | €43,230 | Midland | 3.9 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Kilkenny | €43,132 | South-East | 2.9 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Westmeath | €43,072 | Midland | 3.9 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Sligo | €42,468 | Border | 3.8 | Better paid, heavier register |
| Waterford | €42,460 | South-East | 2.9 | Better paid, lighter register |
| Roscommon | €42,150 | West | 3.2 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Offaly | €41,464 | Midland | 3.9 | Lower paid, heavier register |
| Louth | €41,449 | Mid-East | 3.1 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Tipperary | €41,338 | South-East | 2.9 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Leitrim | €41,162 | Border | 3.8 | Lower paid, heavier register |
| Mayo | €40,657 | West | 3.2 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Cavan | €40,596 | Border | 3.8 | Lower paid, heavier register |
| Carlow | €40,363 | South-East | 2.9 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Wexford | €39,409 | South-East | 2.9 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Kerry | €38,906 | South-West | 2.7 | Lower paid, lighter register |
| Longford | €38,857 | Midland | 3.9 | Lower paid, heavier register |
| Monaghan | €37,867 | Border | 3.8 | Lower paid, heavier register |
| Donegal | €36,967 | Border | 3.8 | Lower paid, heavier register |
Median annual earnings by county (2024) against Live Register claimants per 100 residents in the county's region (June 2026). National figure: 3.3 claimants per 100 residents.
Where the two measures agree
The combinations intuition would predict — well paid with few claimants, or poorly paid with many — account for just 13 of the 26 counties. Sitting above the pay midpoint with a lighter register than the national 3.3 per 100 are Kildare, Wicklow, Cork, Meath, Galway, Kilkenny and Waterford. Below the midpoint with a heavier one are Offaly, Leitrim, Cavan, Longford, Monaghan and Donegal. Between them those two groups trace the outline anyone would draw freehand: a prosperous belt around the capital and the southern cities, a weaker band along the border and through the midlands.
Clearest of all is the Border region, where 4 of 5 counties sit in the bottom third of the pay ranking and the claimant share of 3.8 per 100 runs above the national figure. That is the ordinary story of distance from a large employment centre, and nothing here contradicts it.
The prosperous group needs one caveat that the map does not show. Several of its counties are inside commuting distance of Dublin, and earnings here are recorded against the county a person lives in rather than the county they work in. A county can therefore post a high median because its residents travel to well-paid jobs somewhere else, which is a different economic fact from having well-paid jobs. That distinction is worked through in the Dublin premium, sector by sector, where the capital's pay advantage turns out to be much smaller in some industries than the county-level numbers imply.
The Mid-West breaks the pattern
That leaves 13 counties in combinations intuition does not cover, and the awkward one — above the pay midpoint and above the national claimant share at the same time — holds Dublin, Limerick, Clare, Laois, Westmeath and Sligo. The Mid-West supplies the sharpest case. Its claimant share of 4.9 per 100 is the heaviest of any region, clear of the Midland on 3.9 and 1.8 times the South-West on 2.7. Yet Limerick is the 6th best-paid county of 26, on a median of €44,498, +5.2% against the midpoint.
A regional labour market can produce both readings at once when the jobs it has are good and there are not enough of them. A concentration of higher-paying employers lifts the median of everyone in work without doing anything for people who are not, and the median is silent about how many people that is. Read the two columns as answers to different questions: the salary column tells you what a job there tends to pay, and the claimant column tells you something about how hard one is to hold.
The other counties in this quadrant reach it by a narrower route, and their position is worth less weight. Where a county sits just above the pay midpoint or just above the national claimant share, a single revision to either series could move it. The Mid-West is on the list by a wide margin on one measure and a clear one on the other, which is why it carries the argument.
Reading a county's two numbers together
The remaining quadrant, below the pay midpoint with a lighter register, holds Roscommon, Louth, Tipperary, Mayo, Carlow, Wexford and Kerry. It is the least discussed combination and the most reasonable one to end on, because it shows that a light Live Register is not a proxy for prosperity. Steady, moderately paid employment produces exactly this profile, and so does an age structure with a larger share of people outside the workforce entirely — which the claimant share, measured against total population rather than the labour force, cannot separate out.
For anyone weighing a move, the useful pairing is not pay against unemployment but pay against what pay buys. The claimant share describes the risk attached to a local labour market; it does not describe the standard of living a salary there supports. Those two adjustments point in opposite directions surprisingly often, and the second one is set out county by county in where Irish salaries go furthest. A county with a heavier register and cheaper housing can still leave more in hand at the end of the month than a lighter-register county that costs more to live in — as the figures for Limerick and its neighbours show.
Source: median annual earnings by county are from CSO DEA06 (2024), built from Revenue PAYE administrative records. Claimant counts are from LRM17 (Live Register), June 2026, published by region rather than by county. Population denominators are Census 2022 (FP001), so claimant shares are calculated against a population that has since grown and are comparative rather than absolute. The Live Register is not a measure of unemployment and is not the CSO's unemployment rate. Earnings data last refreshed 2026-07-27. Full source detail is on the methodology page.