Work prospects and age education ceased

As in 2011, Census 2016 shows unemployed persons finished education at an earlier age than those who were at work. 

There were 255,663 people aged 15 and over who had ceased their education and were unemployed.  Among those with stated age education ceased, Census 2016 shows that 42.9 per cent (down from 49.0% in 2011) had completed their full-time education by age 18 while 11.4 per cent (down from 13.4% five years earlier) had completed their education aged 15 or under.

In contrast, among the 1.9 million persons who were at work and had completed their education, only 29.8 per cent had completed their education before they turned 19 (but also down on 2011 when it was 35.4%). Census 2016 also shows that 32.4 per cent did not complete their education until they were at least 21 years old which was an increase from 29.4 per cent in 2011.

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Early school leavers

In total 308,908 persons completed their full-time education before the age of 16 in 2016 (down from 389,488 five years earlier). Among these people, 190,470 or 61.7 per cent were aged 60 or over. This is up from 54.9% in 2011 meaning the number of early school leavers are declining and ageing.

The labour force participation rate for the early school leavers was 38.1 per cent compared with 61.4 per cent for the population generally, reflecting the older age profile of this group. Unemployment among early school leavers was 24.9 per cent, almost double the overall unemployment rate of 12.9 per cent.

There were 14,971 persons aged between 20 and 34 who completed their full-time education aged 15 or younger. Among this group, labour force participation was relatively high at 75.7 per cent but the unemployment rate was over three times the national figure at 42.6 per cent, see figure 2.2.

In the older age group of 35 to 59 year olds, early school leavers labour force participation was 71.1 per cent and unemployment was 24.5 per cent.

Education attainment by industry

Figure 2.3 presents the industrial groups (NACE Rev. 2) by stated level of completed educational attainment for persons at work in 2016.

The sector agriculture, forestry and fishing had the highest percentage of persons educated to primary level or lower at 18.0% (of 83,421 workers), while the financial and insurance activities sector reported the least at 0.4 per cent (of 85,312 workers).

Wholesale and retail trade (including repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles) had the highest percentage of workers with upper secondary as the highest level of education achieved at 43.4 per cent of a work force of 238,898 persons. This was closely followed by accommodation and food services activities at 42.3 per cent (of 96,567 workers).

Just over 70 per cent of the 164,658 workers were educated to third level degree or higher in the education sector, the highest for this educational attainment category among all the broad sectors, followed by information and communications (with 69.5% of 82,116 workers).

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Third level qualified workers

A more detailed breakdown of the top ten industrial groups with the highest percentage of workers with a third level degree or higher qualification can be seen in Table 2.1.

Of the total work force of 1,756,688 persons with a stated level of education attainment (and had ceased their full time education) 40.4 per cent indicated they were educated to a third level degree or higher.

Fund management activities with 6,594 workers had the highest percentage of persons within this educational category at 86.9 per cent.  This was followed by the sector higher education (83.7% of a total 26,782 persons) and the secondary education sector (83.3% of 39,179 persons).

The sector with the largest absolute number of persons with third level degree or higher was the hospital activities sector with 48,980 workers (accounting for 63.4% of the total workforce in this sector).

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Third level education and occupations

The teaching and educational professionals occupation group contained the highest proportion of third level degrees or higher of all occupational groups with 94.7 per cent (of 94,866 workers with stated education attainment).

Among business, media and public service professionals, 89.9 per cent (of 92,728 workers) held a third level degree or higher, while 89.7 per cent of health professions also had a third level degree or higher qualification.

Just over half (51.8% in 2016 compared with 45.9% in 2011) of workers in the occupation group corporate managers and directors held a third level degree or higher qualification.

In absolute terms, the occupation group teaching and educational professionals also had the highest number of workers with third level degrees or higher qualifications (89,838), followed by business, media and public service professionals (83,374), health professionals (74,836) and science, research, engineering and technology professionals (71,043).

Secondary level

More than one in three (34.5%) of the 61,910 professionals in the occupation group transport and mobile machine drivers and operatives, who had completed their education, were educated at lower secondary level only – the highest percentage of any occupational group.

Just over half (51.4%) of secretarial and related occupations indicated that their highest level of education attainment was upper secondary and was the occupational group with the highest proportion in this education category.

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