Irish net emigration halves as jobs recovery gathers speed

* Employment rate improvement had stalled in recent data

* Net emigration halves, but Irish still reluctant to return

* Economy key to government's 2016 re-election bid (Releads on emigration figures, adds data)

By Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries

DUBLIN, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) 's net emigration rate almost halved in the year to April and the unemployment rate continued to fall, data showed on Wednesday, as Europe's fastest growing economy shows signs of becoming an attractive location for workers again.

Employment has grown strongly since the jobless rate hit a high of 15.1 percent in early 2012 when the economy was propped up by international bailout, but data this month indicated that it had stopped falling and was stuck at 9.7 percent in May, June and July.

Revised figures from the central statistics office said the rate had fallen to 9.5 percent in both June and July with employment up in 11 of the 14 sectors of the economy measured and growing for 11 consecutive quarters.

"This is very good news for Ireland. We'll easily be the best performing economy in Europe this year," said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Merrion Stockbrokers, who forecast that unemployment would fall below 9 percent next year when Ireland's coalition government seeks re-election.

Ireland's export-dependent economy has benefited from a sharp fall in the value of the euro compared to the dollar and sterling. Consumer demand is also improving after several years of stagnation that followed a disastrous property crash in 2008.

Since then over half a million people have emigrated, many of them young graduates in search of work, ending almost a decade-and-a-half of unbroken net immigration as fewer people moved to the country of 4.6 million.

While the numbers leaving remained relatively constant in the year to April, inward migration rose by 14 percent to almost halve net emigration to 11,600, its lowest level since 2010.

Migrants from outside the European Union accounted for most of the change with little evidence yet that the recovering economy was beginning to tempt home Irish nationals, with three times as many emigrating than returning.

While the gap is closing, almost twice as many Irish people returned home when unemployment was at its peak in 2012 than in the last year

"Given the expectation of ongoing economic recovery, we expect this to change course over the coming years and that the returning Irish will be an important component of population growth," said Dermot O'Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers.

In another sign of the recovery not petering out, data showed that monthly growth in residential property prices hit a four-month high in July after three months of consecutive falls.

Prices grew faster outside of Dublin than in the capital, a sign that may ease concerns about a 'two-speed' recovery. (Editing by Robin Pomeroy)