20 May 2021
Go to release: COVID-19 Income Supports - An Analysis of Recipients March 2020 to May 2021
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (20 May 2021) released COVID-19 Income Supports - An Analysis of Recipients March 2020 to May 2021. This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Publication. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this experimental analysis. The aim of this Frontier Series is to provide insight into the recipients of the different COVID-19 income supports by demonstrating how the levels of recipients have changed over time and presenting the characteristics of the recipients of the different schemes.
Commenting on the analysis of Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) recipients included in today’s publication, John Mullane, Statistician, said:
“The impact of the different phases of Government COVID-19 restrictions on the number of persons in receipt of the PUP is quite evident from the graphical analysis of weekly PUP recipients published today with three peaks coinciding with the three lockdown periods since March 2020.
While 385,211 persons were in receipt of the PUP during the week ending 02 May 2021, 863,546 persons have received at least one PUP payment since the scheme began in March 2020.
The trends and levels of both male and female PUP recipients are quite similar between March 2020 and the start of May 2021. However, during the first lockdown (April to June 2020) and the third lockdown (since January 2021), the number of male PUP recipients each week was much higher than females.”
Commenting on the analysis of Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) recipients published today, John Mullane added:
“The TWSS was operational from March 2020 to 31 August 2020 and the number of persons estimated to have been supported by the scheme in a single week peaked at 422,224 during the week ending 03 May 2020.
While the trends of both the male and female series are broadly similar, the series for males is much higher at some points than females and the peaks occur at different times. For males, the series peaked at 248,648 during the week ending 03 May 2020 while the peak for females of 181,089 occurred during the week ending 02 August 2020.
By the time the TWSS closed on 31 August 2020, 664,098 people had received at least one TWSS payment since the scheme was established in March 2020, of which 56.5% were male, 16.0% were aged under 25 years and 50.0% were aged between 25 and 44 years of age."
Commenting on the analysis of Employee Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) recipients published today, John Mullane added:
“While the EWSS replaced the TWSS from 01 September 2020, there were a small number of EWSS claims in July and August 2020 in respect of newly hired or seasonally hired employees who were ineligible for the TWSS. The EWSS data published today covers the period from the week ending 05 July 2020 through to the week ending 28 March 2021.
The week ending Sunday 04 October 2021 has the highest estimate of employees being directly supported by the EWSS (326,888) from the period July 2020 to the end of March 2021. This week also currently contains the highest weekly estimate of the number of females who were directly supported by the EWSS (157,077) while the peak for males occurred during the final week of February (171,141). The EWSS series for males and females were relatively close to each other when the scheme began but the number of males being supported has been greater than the number of females since September 2020. The EWSS series for males and females have diverged further since the start of 2021 with the male series becoming much higher than the female series.
For the week ending 28 March 2021, there were an estimated 294,007 persons (165,483 males and 127,885 females) being directly supported by the EWSS. More than one in four (27.0%) of those currently estimated to have been directly supported by the EWSS for the week ending Sunday 28 March 2021 were aged 35-44 years. Similar, but slightly lower proportions were aged 25-34 years (23.7%) and 45-54 years (21.3%).
The economic sector with the most employees being directly supported by the EWSS during 2020 was the Accommodation & Food Service sector which peaked during the week ending 20 September 2020 at 88,875. The number fell over the following weeks as Government restrictions changed, and it had halved by the week ending 22 November 2020 (45,398). The number of those working in the Accommodation & Food Service sector being directly supported by the EWSS rose again during December and came to a second peak of 83,088 during the week ending 27 December 2020 before falling again during the third lockdown.
The sector with the most employees being directly supported by the EWSS during 2021 was the Wholesale & Retail Trade sector. From the first official week of operation of the EWSS (week ending 06 September 2020) through to the week ending 27 December 2020 there were between 30,000 and 42,000 persons working in the Wholesale & Retail Trade sector being directly supported by the EWSS. The number rose over the following weeks until it peaked during the week ending 31 January 2021 at 60,937. It remained at between 58,000 and 60,000 during February 2021 while current estimates for each week of March 2021 are close to 55,000.
The latest EWSS data available is for the week ending 28 March 2021 and, by then 562,420 people had received at least one EWSS payment, of which 53.9% were male, 20.5% were aged under 25 years and 48.2% were aged between 25 and 44 years of age."
Finally, commenting on the analysis of the weekly totals of recipients of the PUP, the TWSS or the EWSS which excludes duplicates that was also published today, John Mullane continued:
“The Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS recipients (excluding duplicates) peaked during the week ending 03 May 2020 at 1,011,0080; this is currently the only week to have more than one million persons being supported by the different COVID-19 income support schemes.
The latest data available is for the week ending 28 March 2020 when the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS (excluding duplicates) stood at 726,891 with 55.3% males and 19.6% aged under 25 years and 47.0% aged 25-44 years.
The total numbers of male and female recipients on all the schemes are quite similar for the first couple of weeks but the number of male recipients is higher than the corresponding weekly total for females from the week ending 05 April 2020 onwards. Larger differences occur during the weeks that coincide with the first and third lockdowns reflecting the relative contribution of the increased male PUP numbers at those times to the overall totals.
The total number of persons who were supported in at least one week since March 2020 by the PUP, TWSS or the EWSS stood at 1,320,837 by the week ending 28 March 2021. Of these, 57.1% were male and 42.9% were female while 18.5% were aged under 25 years and 47.9% were aged 25-44 years."
Since March 2020, the Government has introduced a range of income support measures to provide financial support to individuals and businesses who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new frontier publication published today, COVID-19 Income Supports: An Analysis of Recipients’, presents an analysis of the recipients of the main COVID-19 income supports that have been made available:
The aim of this Frontier Series is to provide insight into the recipients of the different COVID-19 income supports by demonstrating how the levels of recipients have changed over time and presenting the characteristics of the recipients of the different schemes. This is an example of the policy-relevant research projects the CSO are developing as part of its leadership role in the Irish Statistical System. Our Publishing Formats
For more background information on the data included in the publication, please see the Background Notes for this publication.
Today’s publication includes an infographic and a lot of graphs which demonstrate the changes in the numbers and characteristics of the recipients of the various schemes over time. Please see the Publication to access the visual content.
John Mullane, Labour Market & Earnings - (+353) 21 490 5491
Email: labour@cso.ie
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