LAST UPDATE | 24 Aug 2023
THE EMPLOYMENT RATE in Ireland is at its highest rate since records began in 1998.
In the second quarter of this year, there was an employment rate of 74.2% among people aged 15-64.
That’s an increase of 0.7% on the same period in 2022, according the newly released Labour Force Survey from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The employment rate for men aged 15-64 stood at 78% in Q2 of 2023, and 70.5% for females.
There was also a 3.5% increase in the employment rates of people aged 15-89 in the 12 months to Q2 of this year, up 88,400 to 2,643,000 persons.
Females made up the majority of this increase, at 62,500, while males accounted for 25,900 of this figure.
The rate of youth employment (those aged 15-24) stood at 48% and was slightly higher for females (48.6%) than for males (47.5%).
Around 21.2% of those in employment, an estimated 559,100 people, worked part-time.
Close to 1 in 4 of those in part-time employment were classified as underemployed, meaning that they would like to work more hours for more pay.
And while there was an 11.2% increase in the number of people employed in public Administration and Defence in the year to Q2 2023, there was a significant decrease in the number of persons employed in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector.
This decreased by 6,600, or -6.3%, in the year to Q2 2023.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rates among people aged 15-74 decreased by 0.1% in Q2 when compared to the same period last year, down from 4.5% to 4.4%.
There were 121,200 unemployed persons in this age cohort in Q2 of 2023 using the International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria.
The ILO classification describes an unemployed person as someone who, in the week before the survey, was without work and available for work within the next two weeks, and had taken specific steps in the preceding month to find work.
However, there was an increase in the youth unemployment rate (those aged 15-24).
This figure stood at 12.2% in Q2 of this year, up from 11.4% in Q2 of last year.
Of those who were in employment, an estimated 193,100 (7.3%) were absent from work during the reference week in Q2 of 2023.
This figure includes those temporarily absent from work for reasons such as holidays, sick leave or maternity leave.
This is an increase of 3.2% on the same period a year previous.
However, this was outweighed by an increase in employment of 3.5% among those aged 15-89.
This resulted in an increase of 1.3%, or 1.1 million more hours, worked per week to 84.1 million hours per week in Q2 2023.
Sam Scriven, a statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division of the CSO, explained more about how the CSO came to their findings.
He said: “Randomly selected households receive introductory letters by post asking them to take part in the Labour Force Survey or other CSO surveys.
“These letters give people an option to ring the interviewer or complete the survey face-to-face at the respondent’s home.
“These surveys give us a picture of the economic and social situation of the citizens of Ireland with a level of accuracy that no one else can gain.”
He urged people to take part in a CSO survey if invited to do so.
“It means that when CSO figures are quoted you know they’re accurate, because you told us.”
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