The CSO is committed to the research and development of new products. During the 2020 CSO launched 33 new products.
The following products were listed as new on the Statistical Work Programme and were published in 2020:
The CSO has developed a COVID-19 Information Hub on the CSO website where statistics, acquired from a broad range of sources including the Central Bank of Ireland, other Government Departments and bodies and international sources along with Central Statistics Office statistics, are available. The hub captures the changing state of the economy, labour market, society, wellbeing, health, transport, energy and tourism during the pandemic.
The CSO introduced the Business Impact of COVID-19 survey in April to measure and report quickly on the key features of how the pandemic has impacted on business in Ireland. To date six waves of the survey have been collected to assess the impacts of COVID-19 and provide estimates of how many businesses are continuing to trade and the effect on their turnover, costs and numbers that they employ. A further wave is scheduled to go into the field shortly.
The CSO also published the results of the Frontier series on Business Signs of Life: State Supports which has been created to examine changes in the Irish Business Economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The release links administrative data sources to provide insight into business uptake of the State’s COVID-19 payroll support which includes the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) and Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).
CSO also introduced the Social Impact of COVID-19 survey in April to measure and report quickly on the impact of the pandemic on society and to help inform society and decision makers. The first wave of the survey covered topics such as well-being, personal concerns, consumption, working life and compliance with official COVID-19 advice.
The second iteration of the survey featured reports on “A Snapshot of Experiences and Expectations in a Pandemic” and “Measuring Comfort Levels around the Easing of Restrictions”. Other new outputs delivered include; the Impact of COVID- 19 on Virtual Life, ICT Usage during COVID-19, Employment and Life Effects of COVID- 19, the Re-opening of schools, the Social Impact of COVID 19 on Wellbeing and Lifestyle under Level 5 Restrictions and the Social Impact of COVID-19, Perceptions and expectations around Christmas and International Travel. A further wave will go into the field shortly.
A new bulletin output called Deaths and Cases Series was also developed. Eighteen volumes of the bulletin were published in 2020 with analysis now covering almost all aspects of COVID medical data, including socio-economic breakdowns. Further analysis relating to data on community referrals and testing was added to the bulletin in September.
A new COVID Insight Series was developed, and the first release was on Mobility during the Pandemic.
In order to provide transparency around the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market a number of new outputs and measures have been introduced. The COVID-19 Adjusted Measures of Employment and Unemployment have continued to be published as part of the LFS and Monthly Unemployment Estimates release since March 2020. Updates are also published containing detailed breakdowns of the number of persons who are on the Live Register or in receipt of the COVID-19 income supports.
The LFS release for Q2 2020 on 25 August 2020 was accompanied by the first edition of a 'Labour Market Insight Series'. This bulletin style release is designed to provide high-level supplementary analysis to users alongside the current outputs and metrics. The data is sourced from the LFS and administrative datasets. Four outputs have been published to date.
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