Press Statement

Preasráiteas

30 June 2020

Go to release: Monthly Unemployment June 2020

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (30 June 2020) issued Monthly Unemployment Estimates results in respect of June 2020.

Catalina Gonzalez, Statistician, CSO, explains the approach taken today regarding the publication of the Monthly Unemployment and the COVID-19 Adjusted Unemployment Estimates:

‘Those persons in receipt of the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment at the end of June 2020 do not meet the internationally agreed criteria to be considered as unemployed for the purposes of the compilation of the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates.

Therefore, the CSO is producing a supplementary measure of unemployment in parallel with the routine Monthly Unemployment Estimates.

This COVID-19 Adjusted Monthly Unemployment measure includes those in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment in the calculation of the adjusted unemployment rate. It should be considered as the upper bound for the true rate of unemployment and the standard monthly rate as the lower bound.

This approach preserves the methodology of the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates series while at the same time providing transparency around the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market (see Information Note on Implications of COVID-19 on the Live Register and the Monthly Unemployment Estimates and Monthly Unemployment COVID-19 Technical Note for more details).”

Commenting on today’s publication, Catalina Gonzalez continued:

 ‘The COVID-19 crisis has continued to have a significant impact on the labour market in Ireland in June 2020. While the standard measure of Monthly Unemployment is 5.3% in June 2020, the COVID-19 adjusted measure of unemployment indicates a rate as high as 22.5% if all claimants of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment were classified as unemployed.

The Monthly Unemployment Rate for June 2020 using standard methodology is 5.3%, down from 5.6% in May 2020. In June 2020, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for males and females are 5.2% and 5.4% respectively. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for those aged 15 to 24 years is 12.8% while it is 4.2% for those aged 25 to 74 years.

As well as the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates for June 2020, the CSO have also published an alternative COVID-19 adjusted unemployment measure estimating the share of the labour force in June 2020 that were not working due to unemployment or who were out of work due to COVID-19 and receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.

If all claimants of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment were classified as unemployed, this COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 21.8% for males and 23.5% for females. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the new COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 45.4% for those aged 15 to 24 years and 19.2% for those aged 25 to 74 years.’

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