Unemployment fell by almost 20% (18.6%) in the year to March – a fall of 30,000 people.
The Central Statistics Office has published its Labour Force Survey for the first three months of the year.
The number of people in work has increased by 3% (2.9%) – with 2.2 million people now working.
The number of people classed as long-term unemployed, meaning they’re out of work for a year or more - has fallen by 40%.
Jim Dalton, a statistician with the CSO said: "The total number of persons classed as long-term unemployed was 50,100, and that's down by 34,800 or 40.9% for quarter one 2017.
"Long term unemployment has been declining on an annual basis since the fourth quarter of 2012 and in quarter one of 2018, 37.7% of all unemployed persons were so for 12 months or longer."
