03 September 2021
Overview
COVID-19 has sent shockwaves around the world and its effects have been felt in every aspect of life in Ireland. This snapshot prepared by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) gives an overview of the impact of the virus on the country from the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Ireland on 29 February 2020 to date, based on statistics published by the CSO over that period. The knowledge that behind every statistic is a real person or a business is at the heart of all that the CSO does and will continue to do to bring clarity, insight and transparency around what is happening in our economy and society due to the virus.
The need for timely, relevant data has been particularly acute in the midst of the pandemic. The CSO responded to the pandemic by continuing to produce key statistical publications, adjusting traditional formats such as our Monthly Unemployment and Live Register publications to meet European and national requirements while still making sense of the figures from an Irish perspective. We created innovative products using new data sources and new data collection techniques in an effort to meet the need for real time data. These new sources have included anonymised mobile phone data in our Staying Local Indicator series and using RIP.ie to map deaths in as close to real time as possible.
Some Key Findings
As a result of these new approaches to statistical production, we know that the number of passengers travelling through our main airports in July 2021 was 61% higher than in July 2020, but the number of people travelling to and from this country is 82% lower than the same month in pre-pandemic 2019. We know that for the week commencing 25 July, the total number of bus journeys was 51% of those taken in early March 2020 prior to COVID-19 restrictions.
We know that the number of deaths increased by 890 or 10.3% from 8,674 to 9,564 in Q1 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. There were 1,846 deaths due to COVID-19, accounting for almost one-fifth or around 19% or all deaths in the first three months of the year, of which 995 were male and 851 were female.
In terms of the economy, we know that revenues in 2020 were €3.6 billion lower than in 2019 largely due to the restrictions in place over the course of the year. The main driver of the decline was indirect taxes – reduced VAT receipts and the waiver of commercial rates leading to a reduction of €3.3 billion in revenues.
We know that before the pandemic hit, the highest number of people in employment in Ireland was recorded in Q4 2019 when more than 2.36 million persons were in employment and we had an unemployment rate of 4.5%. The public health measures introduced by the Government in March 2020 to control the spread of the virus saw the COVID-19 Adjusted rate of unemployment peak at 31.5% in April 2020 before falling back to just under 16% in September 2020. The reintroduction of restrictions in the New Year saw it rise again to more than 27% in January 2021. The easing of restrictions over the course of this year has seen this unemployment rate fall back to 12.4% in August 2021.
We know the sectors most impacted in terms of job losses include tourism, hospitality & food service, retail and construction. Those who were displaced from their job due to the pandemic were more likely to be younger, lower-skilled and in part-time positions than the population average. While employment levels declined by 116,600 persons or 5% over the period from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021, a more striking illustration on the impact of the virus on the Labour Market is that there were almost 7.6 million fewer hours worked per week in the year to Q1 2021. This almost 10% reduction in hours worked was most pronounced in the hospitality, construction and other service activities sectors which include culture and recreation.
We know households were supported by government interventions. Compared to the first quarter of 2020, Government subsidies to households were up by €1.1bn (driven by the Wage Subsidy Scheme) and social protection payments grew by €2.7bn (largely due to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment) in the first quarter of 2021. The percentage of enterprises with personnel on COVID-19 income support peaked in April 2020 at more than 57%, while the lowest was in September 2020 at more than 30%.
We know that 56% of SMEs reported closing at some point during the pandemic in 2020, while 67% reported less turnover than would be normally expected.
The hardest hit sector was Accommodation and Food Service Activities, where 90% of firms had to close at some point while 80% reported less turnover than normal expectations.
We know the virus had a significant impact on the retail sales sector. The greatest impact occurred just after the first lockdown, when retail sales fell by 10% in March 2020 followed by a decrease of more than 37% in April 2020. The two other lockdowns had a less severe impact on the overall volume of retail sales, with sales falling by 12% in November 2020 and by 20% in January 2021. By July 2021 overall retail sales were 14% higher compared to July 2019. We also know that many in the retail sector adapted and moved their business to online. The proportion of retail sales conducted online in Irish registered companies grew from an average of 3.3% in 2019 to reach its highest level of 15.3% in April 2020. As retail outlets reopened, online transactions fell and in July 2021 accounted for 4.6% of all sales.
We know people bought 29,000 fewer cars in 2020 when compared to 2019, while the combined number of new electric and hybrid cars licensed in 2020 was 15.7% greater than those licensed in 2019 or 2,251 more cars. This trend has continued with electric and hybrid cars accounting for more than 32% of all new cars purchased in the first seven months of this year.
We know car traffic volumes are now at 87% of July 2019 levels in the Dublin area and 90% of July 2019 levels in regional locations and that Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) traffic volumes from April 2021 to mid-July 2021 in both regional and Dublin locations have risen above 2019 and 2020 levels.
We know that property prices are rising, and the construction sector is starting to recover as restrictions have eased. We know there has been a rebound in new dwelling completions to pre-COVID-19 levels, with apartments accounting for than a quarter of completions in Q2 2021. There were 5,021 new dwelling completions in Q2 2021, which is 55.5% greater than the 3,229 completions in the second quarter of 2020 and 4.6% greater than the 4,802 completions in Q2 2019.
And perhaps most importantly, we undertook five surveys over the course of the pandemic evaluating the social impact of COVID-19 on our society and to identify the types of individuals and households who were most affected by the crisis. As a result of these surveys, we know that almost 17% of women felt lonely ‘All or Most of the time’ in the four weeks prior to interview in February 2021 compared to 9.2% of male respondents.
We know that in April 2020, when COVID-19 related restrictions were first implemented, three in ten (29.6%) respondents rated their overall life satisfaction as Low. After restrictions were eased in August 2020 this rate dropped to just over two in ten (21.6%). In November 2020, during the second wave of COVID-19 and during Level 5 restrictions, the rate increased to 35.6%. The comparable rate in 2018, a time when the Irish economy was growing strongly was 8.7%. Another figure worth comparing it to is from 2013, a time when Irish society was recovering from the 2008 global financial crisis and the rate was 15.3%.
We know that almost half of respondents in February 2021 with a child in fifth or sixth year in secondary school said enforced school closures had a ‘major negative’ impact on their child’s learning, and that adults were spending an average of 52 minutes per day helping primary school children in their household with schoolwork when schools remained closed after Christmas 2020.
We also know that in November 2020, 45% of respondents reported that something in their lives had changed for the better since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, with more than half of women (51%) and over 38% of men saying this. Almost 30% of people reported having more quality time with people they live with as an aspect of their lives that had changed for the better while 19% said their finances have improved. We also know that similar percentages of workers reported a Better work-life balance and Less time commuting or travelling for work as aspects of their lives that have improved since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis (18.8% and 19.4%) respectively.
Commenting on the release, Pádraig Dalton, Director General, CSO, said:
"The role of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) as a key provider of official statistics in Ireland, is to provide evidence based insights that not only help to inform decision makers but also ensure that every person in Ireland lives in an informed society.
Public trust in the CSO and the Official Statistics we compile is built and maintained by providing everybody with access to the same information used by decision makers and providing clarity around how the evidence is compiled. These principles around 'equal access for all' and 'transparency' are two of the greatest strengths of official statistics and are enshrined in both the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the European Statistics Code of Practice.
Over the last 18 months, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of timely, relevant and accurate data. In the CSO, we are keenly aware that behind every statistic is a lived experience, whether it be the lived experience of a person in their personal lives or the lived experience of a business. This snapshot provides vital insights into how our society, economy and the lives of the people of Ireland have been affected throughout the pandemic.
We thank everyone who took part in our surveys and enabled us to compile this information. These ranged from numerous Household and Business Surveys to our new online CSO Pulse Survey which helps gauge people’s attitudes to particular issues at a particular point in time.
Your story matters and it is only by telling us about your experience that we can make sure it feeds into the decision making process and is captured as part of the story of Ireland. We will tell the collective story through our outputs and make sure that it is accessible to all."
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