Close to 600 people across the Shannonside Northern Sound region lost their jobs over Christmas due to the Omicron wave.
Pandemic Unemployment Payments levels had continued to drop over the last 6 months with just 2,500 people receiving the support in the region at the start of last month.
However, as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 spread across the country and new pandemic restrictions were brought in, many businesses shut or laid off staff.
This has resulted in the number of people successfully applying for the payment growing for the first time in many months.
Cavan and Roscommon saw the largest jumps in new applications for the Covid support, while Longford, Leitrim and Monaghan recorded Covid job losses of around 100 each.
Over 3,000 people are in receipt of the payment locally, with 16.6 million euro being paid to over 67,000 people across the country this week.
