Press Statement

Preasráiteas

01 March 2022

Go to release: Earnings and Labour Costs Q3 2021 (Final) Q4 2021 (Preliminary Estimates)

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (01 March 2022) issued Earnings and Labour Costs results in respect of Preliminary estimates for Q4 2021 and Final estimates for Q3 2021.

Louise Egan, Statistician, CSO, explains the impact of COVID-19 on the results presented today:

“When considering the change in earnings, it should be noted that there may be a compositional effect due to the significant changes in employment in certain sectors. The composition of the labour market in Q4 2021 may be very different to previous quarters. The accompanying Labour Market Bulletin Insight Series gives greater detail on compositional changes in employment in certain sectors.”

Explaining the background to the release and outlining the headline results being presented today, Louise Egan continued:

 “The Earnings and Labour Costs quarterly release publishes statistics on average weekly and hourly earnings, hours and labour costs. Government measures put in place in response to COVID-19 related to some or all weeks of Q4 2021 for a number of sectors. 

Across and within economic sectors, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis continues to be experienced very differently. Preliminary estimates for Q4 2021 show average hourly earnings increased on an annual basis by 2.6% to €26.22 while average weekly paid hours decreased by 0.3% to 33.0 hours from 33.1 in Q4 2020. Average weekly earnings were €864.51, an increase of 2.0% compared to €847.21 in Q4 2020. The job vacancy rate in Q4 2021, which measures job vacancies on the last working day of the quarter, was 1.4%, down from 1.5% at the end of Q3 2021 and up from 0.9% at the end of Q4 2020.”

Referring to the separate Labour Market Bulletin Insight Series also being published by the CSO today, Morgan O’Donnell, Statistician, commented:

“Today, the Labour Market and Earnings division in the CSO have also published the tenth bulletin from the Labour Market Insight Series. The data used for the bulletin is sourced from administrative datasets, namely the Revenue Commissioner’s employee level tax data which includes information in relation to the EWSS, as well as data provided from Revenue in relation to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS). 

Analysis presented in the bulletin supports results observed in the Earnings and Labour Costs release in relation to the quarterly changes in employments and earnings at a sectoral level between Q3 2021 and Q4 2021. It also presents analysis of the impact of the EWSS in both quarters.

Key findings from the bulletin include an increase in the number of active employments in Q4 2021 when compared to Q3 2021. The sectors showing the largest percentage increase in employments from Q3 2021 to Q4 2021 were the Administrative & support service activities sector (3.5%) and the Wholesale & retail trade activities sector (2.2%).

Average weekly pay (including EWSS where applicable) increased by 3.4% across all employments between Q3 2021 and Q4 2021. The sectors showing the largest quarterly percentage increase in average weekly pay were the Financial, insurance & real estate activities sector (+11.3%), the Transportation & storage sector (+9.8%) and the Industry sector (+9.8%).

For employments that were active in both Q3 2021 and Q4 2021, average weekly earnings increased by 6.1%, with changes by sectors ranging from a decrease of 2.3% in the Accommodation & food services sector to an increase of 12.5% in the Financial, insurance & real estate activities sector.

In relation to the EWSS, in Q4 2021, 13.2% of active employments in NACE sectors B-S were directly supported by the scheme. The proportion of employments supported by the EWSS in Q4 2021 varied across the sectors with the Accommodation & food services sector (66.5%) and the Arts, entertainment, recreation & other service activities sector (38.7%) having the highest proportions and the Public administration & defence sector (0.2%) having the lowest proportion.

EWSS payments accounted for 4.0% of total earnings across all sectors (B-S) in Q4 2021. In the Accommodation & food services sector EWSS payments represented 45.6% of total earnings, while in the Arts, entertainment, recreation & other service activities sector and the Transportation & storage sector, the proportions were 19.9% and 9.2% respectively.”

Referring to the ongoing reporting difficulties being faced by enterprises due to COVID-19, Louise Egan explained:

“Preliminary estimates for Q4 2021 continue to be impacted by lower response rates than in 2019.

The sectors particularly impacted by low rates of survey response were Construction, Transportation & storage, Administrative & support services sector and Accommodation & food services sector. Caution is therefore advised in relation to the Preliminary estimates published today.” (Please see the updated Technical Note – Impact of COVID-19 on the Earnings and Labour Costs release - updated Quarter 4 2021 for more information.)

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