Labour Force Survey Quarter 3 2021

At the end of September 2021, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment, or the lower bound of the number of persons aged 15 years and over in employment, was estimated to have been 2,369,731 with an associated COVID-19 Adjusted Employment Rate of 69.1% for those aged 15-64 years.

By the end of October 2021, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment is estimated to have been 2,393,394 with an associated COVID-19 Adjusted Employment Rate of 69.8%.

COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment

The CSO began publishing COVID-19 Adjusted Estimates of Unemployment as part of the MUE release for March 2020. The latest COVID-19 Adjusted Unemployment Estimates for March 2020 to October 2021 inclusive were published in the October 2021 MUE release on 03 November 2021. The COVID-19 Adjusted Volume of Unemployment for October 2021 was calculated by adding the number of recipients of the (PUP) for the last week of October 2021 to the non-seasonally adjusted estimate of the volume of unemployed persons in October 2021. These measures should be considered as the upper bound for unemployment.

At the end of September 2021, the COVID-19 adjusted number of unemployed persons aged 15-74 years is estimated to have been 232,866 with an associated COVID-19 adjusted unemployment rate of 8.9%. By the end of October 2021, this adjusted measure of unemployment had reduced to 205,246 with an associated unemployment rate of 7.9%.

ILO status and Principal Economic Status (PES) for those in receipt of COVID-19 income supports in Q3 2021

The official measures of employment and unemployment published from the LFS are based on a series of questions that objectively classify a person as Employed, Unemployed or Inactive using the ILO concepts and definitions. The Principal Economic Status (PES), on the other hand, is a subjective self-assessment by the respondent of their own economic status and the labour market status assigned to an individual from the LFS using the standard ILO methodology may not agree with their own subjective assessment of their situation. For example, a person laid off with no assurance of returning to work may be perceived by many as unemployed. However, under objective ILO guidelines, unless this person is actively seeking work and available to take up employment within two weeks, (s)he is deemed to be Inactive and outside the Labour Force.

Table 7.2 below presents the percentages of all persons aged 15 years and older who were in each of the ILO and PES categories in Q3 2021. The percentage breakdowns by ILO and PES are also presented separately for those who were in receipt of the PUP and for those who are estimated to have benefitted from the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) during the interview reference week in Q3 2021.

For all three groups, the percentage of those who were classified as Employed on the objective (ILO) basis is higher than the number ‘At work’ using the subjective (PES) basis. The share of all persons aged 15 years and older who were classified as Employed using the ILO criteria was 61.4% while it was 56.6% for those ‘At work’ using the PES measure.

Of those in receipt of the PUP in the reference week in Q3 2021, 43.2% were classified as Employed on the ILO basis while 34.6% classified themselves as ‘At work’ using the PES. On the other hand, 94.6% of those in receipt of the EWSS were classified as Employed on the ILO basis while 83.6% self-classified themselves as ‘At work’ using the PES.

The percentage of those who were classified as Unemployed on the objective (ILO) basis was lower for all three groups.

Persons in receipt of the PUP in the reference week in Q3 2021 were more likely to self-classify themselves as Unemployed using PES (37.4%) than be objectively classified as Unemployed on the ILO basis (28.4%).

The difference for all persons aged 15 years and over was of a lower order; 4.6% were classified as unemployed on the ILO basis and 3.7% self-classified themselves as unemployed using PES.

Virtually all of those benefitting from the EWSS were officially classified as either Employed or Inactive while just 0.6% were objectively classified as Unemployed on the ILO basis

Persons who are not classified as either Employed or Unemployed are deemed to be outside the Labour Force and are classified as Inactive. The proportion of all persons aged 15 years and older who were assessed as being ‘Inactive’ using the PES was higher (38.8%) than when assessed on an ILO basis (35.0%).

While those in receipt of the PUP were just as likely to classify themselves as Inactive using either of the ILO or PES criteria, those in receipt of EWSS were more likely to classify themselves as Inactive using PES at 15.5% compared to being classified as Inactive using the ILO criteria (4.8%).

Absences from work and actual hours worked per week in the LFS

In the LFS, a person can still be classified as Employed even if absent from work due to layoff, off season, parental leave or any other reason (other than holidays, maternity/paternity leave, leave due to illness or education and training) when interviewed using the ILO criteria provided they expect to return to the job within three months or they are receiving some job related income or benefit in the case of parental leave. All other absences such as holidays, maternity/paternity leave, illness leave, or education and training are deemed to still contain an attachment to the job and are thus classified as Employed.

Those who are classified as Employed on the ILO basis and who worked during the reference week are asked for the number of hours they worked that week (‘Actual Hours’). The estimate of the total number of ‘Actual Hours’ worked per week in each quarter is calculated by adding together the number of ‘Actual Hours’ worked in the reference week for all persons in employment.

Table 7.3 above presents the numbers in employment, the numbers absent from work and the ‘Actual Hours’ worked per week in Q3 of 2019, 2020 and 2021. The annual changes and annual percentage changes to Q3 2020 and Q3 2021 are also presented.

While the numbers in employment on the ILO basis, which stood at 2,471,200 in Q3 2021, was up 221,200 or 9.8% over the year since Q3 2020, the number of employed persons who were absent from work was also up 49,400 or 19.5% to 303,200. This resulted in an increase of 4.3 million in the number of hours worked to 77.1 million hours in Q3 2021, having stood at 72.7 million hours per week in Q3 2020.

The number of absences from work in Q3 2020 was up by 36,500 or 16.8% from the same quarter in 2019 and this led to a fall of 4.2 million or 5.5% in the number of hours worked in the reference week.

Table 7.4 below presents the number of persons absent from work during the reference week as a percentage of the numbers employed by economic sector for Q3 of 2019, 2020 and 2021. The overall rate of absence increased from 9.4% in Q3 2019 to 11.3% in Q3 2020 while employment fell by 3.2% between Q3 2019 and Q3 2020. In Q3 2021, the rate of absence was 12.3% and the level of employment rose by 9.8% from Q3 2020.

The differing impact of COVID-19 and public health restrictions over the two-year period are very evident from the table. The rate of absence for some sectors such as Public Administration & Defence, Education and Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing, have not been overly affected by the pandemic as the rate of absence has not changed much over the period. However, the adverse effect of the pandemic on the rate of absence has been much more significant for other sectors and some notable examples are:

• The Accommodation & Food Service Activities sector where the rate of absence was 5.6% in Q3 2019 and rose to 16.0% in Q3 2020 and decreased to 9.8% in Q3 2021
• The Information & Communication sector where the rate of absence was 5.8% in Q3 2019 and 5.9% in Q3 2020 and rose to 9.0% in Q3 2021
• The Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities sector where the rate of absence in Q3 2021 stood at 11.2% having increased from 10.6% in Q3 2020 and 8.1% in Q3 2019
• The Industry sector where the rate of absence was 10.5% in Q3 2021 having increased from 7.3% in Q3 2020 and 6.6% in Q2 2019
• The Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector where the rate of absence was 13.6% in Q3 2021 having increased from 7.2% in Q3 2020 and 8.2% in Q3 2019

The number of hours worked per week in Q3 2021 in several sectors are close to 2019 levels and some of these sectors such as Public Administration and Defence and Education were less likely to be impacted by the pandemic. However, the impact is much more evident in some other sectors. These included:

• The Accommodation & Food Service Activities Sector where the number of hours worked per week was 4.9 million in Q3 2021 compared to 3.7 million in Q3 2020 and 5.4 million in Q3 2019
• The Information & Communication Sector, where the number of hours worked per week was 5.1 million in Q3 2021 compared to 4.7 million in Q3 2020 and 4.8 million in Q3 2019
• The Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities Sector, where the number of hours worked per week was 5.4 million in Q3 2021 having been 4.7 million in Q3 2020 and 4.8 million in Q3 2019.