17 November 2020
Go to release: Labour Force Survey (LFS) Quarter 3 2020
See: Infographic
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (17 November 2020) issued results from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for Q3 2020.
Commenting on the report, Jim Dalton, Statistician, said: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on the Irish Labour Market and that impact started towards the end of Quarter 1 2020. As the CSO is obliged to follow standard definitions and methodology when calculating the official estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), it has been decided to compile the Quarter 3 2020 LFS estimates in the usual way and provide separate COVID-19 Adjusted Estimates. This approach preserves the methodology of the LFS while at the same time providing transparency around the current impact of COVID-19 on the Labour Market within Ireland.
Using the standard International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria, the unadjusted number of persons aged 15 years and over in employment fell by 1.4% or 31,700 to 2,295,200 in the year to Q3 2020. The greater rates of decrease in employment in specific sectors were in Accommodation and Food Services (-16.1% or -28,600), Administration and Support Services (-13.4% or -14,600) and the Other NACE Activities (-10.7% or -12,800) which includes Arts, sports, entertainment and cultural activities. The Employment Rate for those aged 15-64 years was 67.7% in Q3 2020.
When the effects of COVID-19 are taken into account, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment, or lower bound of the number of persons aged 15 years and over in employment, is estimated to have been 2,078,058 at the end of September 2020 with an associated COVID-19 Adjusted Employment Rate of 61.0% for those aged 15-64 years. By the end of October 2020, these are estimated to have stood at 1,965,209 and 57.5% respectively.
Using the standard ILO criteria, the unadjusted number of persons aged 15-74 years who were unemployed in Q3 2020 stood at 174,700 with an associated Unemployment Rate of 7.1%.
On 04 November 2020, as part of the Monthly Unemployment Estimates release for October 2020, the CSO published COVID-19 Adjusted Unemployment Volumes and Rates for the end of September 2020 which corresponded to 394,538 persons and 15.9% respectively for persons aged 15-74 years. By the end of October 2020, these are estimated to have stood at 501,640 and 20.2% respectively.
In Q3 2020, using the standard methodology, the total number of persons in the labour force was up 0.6% or 14,900 to 2,469,800 from Q3 2019. The number of persons not in the labour force was 1,514,300 and that was up 3.0% or 43,600 from a year earlier.’
Commenting on the importance of sampled individuals taking part in the LFS, Jim Dalton, Statistician, added: ‘Following public health guidelines regarding COVID-19, our interviewers no longer call to homes but conduct interviews over the phone. Selected households will receive introductory letters by post asking them to ring to schedule an interview. These surveys give us a picture of the economic and social situation of the citizens of Ireland, in a way, and with a level of accuracy, no one else can gain. If you are asked to take part in a CSO survey, please do so. It means that when CSO figures are quoted you know they’re accurate, because you told us.’
Commenting on a different output also being released today, Jim Dalton continued: ‘Alongside the LFS release today, the Labour Market analysis area of the CSO is also publishing the third series of the Labour Market Insight Bulletins. These outputs are designed to provide additional insight into the effect of COVID-19 on the labour market in Ireland by providing high-level supplementary analysis to users alongside the standard labour market outputs and metrics. The data is sourced from the LFS, administrative datasets and linkage of these sources. The insight bulletin being published today is specifically designed to give some context to the standard LFS results for Q3 2020 (Labour Market Insight Series 3 Q3 2020). Further iterations of this new output are likely to provide extra detail and focus on specific aspects of the labour market.’
Note to Editors
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland including the official measures of employment and unemployment. These official measures are based on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) concepts and definitions. The ILO measures are the international standard and all EU Member States are legally obliged to compile and provide this data to Eurostat on a quarterly basis. The methodology outlined in the Information Note published alongside the Q2 2020 LFS results on 24 August 2020 still applies to the LFS results for Q3 2020. Please see Information Note - Implications of COVID-19 on the Labour Force Survey - Quarter 2 2020 Update
For more information - https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/lfs/labourforcesurvey
For further information contact:
Jim Dalton, Labour Market Analysis – 087-678-0316
Email: labour@cso.ie
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