This publication is part of a series of results from Census 2022. More thematic publications will be published throughout 2023 as outlined in the Census 2022 Publication Schedule.
At the time of the Census in 2022, there were 2.3 million people at work, a rise of 16% since 2016.
The proportion of male workers was 53%, almost the same as in 2016 (54%).
In 2022, the number of male workers increased by 15% from six years previously and stood at 1.2 million.
The number of female workers increased by a slightly higher rate of 16% to a total of 1.1 million.
The industrial group with the most workers in April 2022 was Public administration, with nearly 107,000 people working in this area, followed by Residential care and social work activities, with just under 104,000 people.
For males, the largest industry groups were Farming and IT activities (including computer programming, consultancy and related services), both with over 59,000 people employed.
The industry group with the most female workers in 2022 was Residential care and social work activities (nearly 81,000 people employed), followed by Hospital activities (just over 70,000 people).
The industrial group which saw the largest increase in workers (over 37,000 people) since 2016 was Other human health activities (including therapeutic services, optician services, ambulance services, blood banks and vaccine clinics).
The next largest increase (of nearly 31,000 workers) was in IT activities.
The Public administration sector grew by over 23,000 people since 2016, Engineering (architectural, engineering and related activities) increased by nearly 20,000 people and Construction increased by just under 18,000 people.
Most of these industries had also seen growth between 2011 and 2016 except for Public administration which shed nearly 5,000 workers in that period.
The industry with the largest decline was Farming which saw a fall of over 8,000 workers, followed by Wholesale of food, down 6,562 people.
Retail of clothing fell by 4,306 people and the Taxi industry had nearly 3,000 fewer workers in 2022.
For female workers, the biggest increase was in Other human health activities (+28,528) and the biggest decline was in Retail sale of clothing in specialised stores (-3,536).
For males, the industry with the biggest increase was IT activities (+17,840) and the group with the largest decline was Farming (-8,135).
As in 2016, the occupational group with the most workers in 2022 was Sales and retail assistants including cashiers and check-out operators, despite a fall of 5% since 2016 to 85,918.
The next largest occupational groups in 2022 were Nurses and midwives (up 14% since 2016) and Farmers (down 11% since 2016), both with 61,473 workers.
The largest increase was in the Nursing auxiliaries and assistants category which more than doubled in size to over 36,000 people.
The next largest rises were among National government administrative occupations and Programmers and software developers, both up by around 12,000 people.
The largest decline was among Care workers and home carers, down 8,512 people to 36,093 workers, a fall of 19%. The second largest decline was among Farmers, down 11% to 61,473 people.
All counties saw an increase in the number of workers since 2016, but the size of the increase varied substantially by county.
Longford had the largest percentage increase in workers, up 30% from 15,172 people at work to nearly 20,000.
Carlow and Meath had the next largest increase, both up by 22%.
The county with the smallest growth was Kerry, where there were 10% more people at work. This was followed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown with an increase of 11%.
A question on whether people's employment was full-time was asked for the first time in 2022. Three-quarters of workers stated they were in full-time employment with 14% working part-time.
The proportion of female workers who were part-time was over three times higher than the proportion of males, 23% and 7% respectively.
Female workers aged 65 years and over had the highest percentage of part-time employment at 46% followed by those aged 55 to 64 at 34%.
The age group with the lowest proportion of part-time workers among females was the 25 to 34 year olds (13%).
Among male workers, the age group with the highest proportion in part-time employment was also the over 65s (20%), followed by those aged 15 to 24 (11%).
The male age group with the lowest proportion of part-time workers was 35 to 44 (4%).
In 2022, among industrial groups with over 2,000 workers, the sector with the highest percentage of people working part-time was Other service activities, where a third of workers were part-time. This sector included hair and beauty activities, dry cleaners, repair of personal and household goods, funeral activities.
The sector with the next highest proportion of part-time workers was Arts and entertainment (25%).
The industry with the lowest proportion of part-time workers was Information and communication activities (5%).
The occupational group with the highest percentage of part-time workers was Secretarial and related occupations at 39%.
The next highest were Leisure, travel and personal services with 37% of workers, followed by Sales occupations with 36% part-time workers.
Occupations with the lowest percentage of part-time workers were in the Science, research, engineering and technology category at 3%.
Only 4% of workers in the Skilled metal, electrical and electronic trades, Science, engineering and technology associates and Protective service occupations worked part-time.
The number of self-employed workers fell from over 313,000 in 2016 to nearly 309,000 in 2022. The proportion of all workers who were self-employed also fell in that time from 16% to 13%.
Males made up three-quarters of self-employed workers and 50% of employees.
The age group 45 to 54 years had the highest number of self-employed workers (over 88,000).
The age group with the highest proportion of self-employed workers was 65 and over (48%).
Self-employed males and females had a similar proportional distribution across age groups, with females, however, having a slightly lower proportion in each age category.
Of the 77,307 people aged 15 years and over who moved to the State in the year prior to April 2022, 56% (43,650) were at work. Of these, 27% were Irish citizens.
The industry with the largest number of recent immigrant workers was Human health and social work activities, with 5,748 workers of whom 27% were Irish citizens.
The next largest industrial sector for recent immigrants was Accommodation and food service activities, with 5,545 workers of whom 10% were Irish citizens.
The occupational group with the largest number of recent migrant workers was Elementary administration and service occupations, with over 5,000 people.
The next largest occupational groups were Health professionals and Science, research, engineering and technology professionals, both with over 4,000 people who had moved to the State in the year leading up to Census 2022.
The occupational group Business, media and public service professionals had the highest number of Irish citizens who moved to the State in the year leading to the census working in it.
The number of people who recorded that they worked mainly from home increased by 173% between 2016 and 2022, from 94,955 workers in 2016 to 259,467 in 2022.
The Information and communication industrial group had the most people who worked mainly from home in 2022 (over 52,000), up by over nine fold since 2016.
The next largest sector was Professional, scientific and technical activities (over 34,000 home-based workers).
The industry with the highest increase in home-based workers was Finance and insurance, growing by more than 20 times.
Dublin City had the largest increase in the number of people working mainly from home, up by nearly 30,000 workers since 2016.
Cork city and county had the second highest increase, up by just under 19,000 workers.
A new question was included in Census 2022 asking people whether they ever worked from home and if so, for how many days per week. Nearly 750,000 people (32% of workers) reported that they worked from home for at least one day a week.
More than half of workers (57%) said that they never worked from home.
Among people who worked from home, 15% did so for one day a week, 17% for two days, 16% for three days, 10% for four days and 33% for five or more days per week.
The county with the highest proportion of workers who ever worked from home was Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, with 57% working one or more days a week from home.
The counties with the next highest proportion of remote workers were Dublin City (40%), Fingal (38%) and Wicklow (37%).
Workers in Monaghan and Longford were the least likely to work from home, at 21%.
Among towns with 1,500 or more residents, Malahide and Portmarnock in Fingal had the highest proportion (57%) of workers who worked from home for some part of their week.
The Information and communications industry had the highest percentage of people who ever worked from home (84%). Over 40% of people in this industry worked from home for five or more days a week.
Some 80% of workers in the Financial and insurance sector worked one or more days from home, with nearly 30% working five or more days from home. This sector had the highest proportion of people working one to three days from home (32%), followed by Professional, scientific and technical activities (31%).
Workers in the Agricultural, forestry and fishing sector had the second highest proportion working from home five or more days a week (30%).
People working in the Accommodation and food services sector were the least likely to work from home, with only 10% working one or more days from home.
Workers in IT and business management occupations such as programmers, developers, management consultants, project managers and web designers were the most likely to work from home one or more days a week, with between 90% and 95% of people in these jobs working from home for at least some part of the week. Authors and insurance underwriters were also in the top 10 occupations who worked from home to at least some extent.
The occupations most likely to work five or more days a week from home were authors, writers and translators; 59% of these worked remotely for five or more days a week.
Web designers and development professionals were the next highest occupational group to work from home for five or more days a week (58%).
Occupations with the highest proportion of people working three or four days a week from home were managers in the Civil and Public Service (45%), public service professionals (39%) and insurance underwriters (38%).
In April 2022, occupations with at least 2,000 workers who were most likely to work one or two days a week from home were further and higher education teaching professionals (47%) and psychologists (39%).
The average travel time of those who never worked from home was much shorter (27 minutes) than for those who worked one or more days from home (36 minutes).
Among workers who never worked from home, only 9% had a commute of one hour or more which compares with 14% of people who worked one or more days from home.
The average commute time increased from 33 minutes for those working from home one day a week to 42 minutes for those working four days a week from home.
The percentage of workers with a commute of one hour or more was highest among those working three days a week from home (21%).
| Not stated | Commute of one hour or more | Commute of less than 1 hour | Average travel time | |
| Work from home 1 day | 2.84009312365644 | 14.8373457973936 | 82.3225610789499 | 32.6 |
| Work from home 2 days | 4.3561551216214 | 19.1374619681579 | 76.5063829102207 | 37.3 |
| Work from home 3 days | 10.7809329781993 | 20.9899220987417 | 68.2291449230589 | 40.3 |
| Work from home 4 days | 25.3931915774225 | 19.0206425578147 | 55.5861658647628 | 41.7 |
People living further from their workplace tended to work from home for more days.
The number of days working from home increased with the distance from the workplace.
Those who did not work from home had an average distance of 15km to travel to their workplace while those who worked from home five days had the longest average journey to their workplace (31km).
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