THE number of people claiming unemployment benefits fell 800 in April - the 15th successive decline in dole queues.
According to official figures, the number of claimants has dropped by 8,200 in the past year.
The statistics, included in the Northern Ireland Labour Force Survey, also revealed the unemployment rate to be 7.2 per cent, behind the UK average of 6.8 per cent.
Enterprise minister Arlene Foster said the figures were "very encouraging".
"The number of claimants has fallen in each of the last 15 months, which is the most sustained decrease since June 1995," she said.
"The past month has seen continuing evidence of significant investment, with almost 3,000 new jobs being announced since the beginning of April. This is a direct result of hard work by my department and Invest NI and is good news for all of Northern Ireland, with jobs being created in Newtownabbey, Londonderry, Portadown, Antrim, Carrickfergus, Belfast and Tyrone."
Danske Bank's chief economist in the north Angela McGowan said further improvement in the jobs market was expected in the near future.
"The local economy continues to make solid progress with unemployment seeing a marginal fall during the first quarter of this year. It is anticipated that the Quarter 2 labour market data will also see further improvement with April already bringing a re-cord number of job creation announcements for Northern Ireland (nearly 2,800)," she said.
She said a "significant proportion of labour market progress appears to be driven by inward investment projects while the improvement in the UK as a whole has been heavily driven by growth in self-employment (which accounted for two-thirds of the UK's quarterly increase in jobs).
"It appears that Northern Ireland still has significant scope for driving up local self-employment levels and policy focus in this area could reap significant rewards for the economy going forward.
Trade union Unite meanwhile said the improvements were "nowhere near what is needed to address the scale of the economic challenges posed by the current economic recession".
Its regional secretary for Northern Ireland Jimmy Kelly said: "Unemployment has fallen by one-tenth of one per cent over the last three months but the jobless rate in Northern Ireland remains the highest of any UK region at 7.2 per cent of the labour force. This rate is 75 per cent higher than it was before the onset of the 2007 banker's crash.
"Unfortunately even these headline statistics mask the true scale of the problem; in addition to those who meet the stringent conditions for inclusion on the jobless total, there is substantial 'hidden' unemployment. NISRA figures suggest a further 2.7 per cent, who are currently categorised as 'economically inactive', want employment. This suggests that the true unemployment rate is roughly one-in-10 of the labour force.