Economic commentary from banks and stockbrokers has an almost bland uniformity to it these days. Ireland is bottoming out, recovery is on the way, goes the standard, somewhat trite narrative.

Even when the live register eases past 12%, the commentary talks about a slow down in the rate of decline and mentions that the live register is not necessarily the most accurate guide to the "real" level of unemployment.

This final point is asserted on the basis that the live register contains many thousands of part-time, casual and seasonal workers who are entitled to claim job seeker's benefit, but are not technically unemployed. For the real guide to unemployment you're better off consulting the quarterly national household survey, the bottoming-out brigade is likely to tell you.

But hold on a second. Have these people never heard of underemployment? Thousands of part-time, seasonal and casual workers on the live register wish to take on more work, rather than just earning an income for no more than three days a week. This is called underemployment and is regarded as a serious structural flaw in any economy because it means labour is being under-utilised and the economy is operating below its full productive capacity.

Rather than the live register being a hopeless guide to "real" unemployment, it is the most accurate guide to the sheer scale of underemployment afflicting the entire economy.