The charts below shows the unemployment rate and the number of people leaving Ireland from 1988 to 2008.

"The chart illustrates how high the proportion of residents who were out-of-work and the number of citizens who emigrated abroad over a period of 2 decades from 1988.

Overall

, the number of people leaving

this

country and its unemployment rate correlated strongly, with changes in the former lagging two

years

behind the latter. Looking first at the emigration numbers and the rate of Irish residents who were between jobs in the first 14

years

. The former commenced the period with its highest number of 60,000,

while

the latter was almost 18%.

Thereafter

, there was a sharp fall to 13% in 1990 in joblessness, followed by a subtle recovery to 15%, before reaching a nadir of over 5% in 2000 and maintained at

this

level for 2

years

. Correspondingly, emigration saw a substantial decline to 350,000 in 1992, but rose marginally 2

years

later, and

then

hitting a trough of 25,000 in 2002. Towards the end of

this

period, the changes observed earlier in the unemployment rate remained, or slightly rose at best.

By contrast

, there was a marked increase in emigration numbers, ending at 50,000, but

this

was still lower than its starting point's figure."