03 June 2020
Go to release: Monthly Unemployment May 2020
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (3 June 2020) issued Monthly Unemployment Estimates results in respect of May 2020.
Edel Flannery, Senior 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 May 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, Edel Flannery continued:
“The COVID-19 crisis has continued to have a significant impact on the labour market in Ireland in May 2020. While the standard measure of Monthly Unemployment was 5.6% in May 2020, a new COVID-19 adjusted measure of unemployment indicates a rate as high as 26.1% if all claimants of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment were classified as unemployed.
The Monthly Unemployment Rate for May 2020 using standard methodology is 5.6%, up from 5.4% in April 2020. In May 2020, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for males and females were 5.5% and 5.7% respectively. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for those aged 15 to 24 years was 13.5% while it was 4.5% for those aged 25 to 74 years.
As well as the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates for May 2020, the CSO have also published an alternative COVID-19 adjusted unemployment measure estimating the share of the labour force in May 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 26.6% for males and 25.5% for females. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the new COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 51.0% for those aged 15 to 24 years and 22.5% for those aged 25 to 74 years.”
Note to Editors
Enquiries:
Catalina Gonzalez, Labour Market Analysis - (+353) 87 646 7535
Email: labour@cso.ie
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