The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland including the official rates of employment and unemployment.
Since March 2020, the CSO has been producing a supplementary measure of monthly unemployment in parallel with the routine Monthly Unemployment Estimates, which incorporates those in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payments (PUP) into the calculation to produce a COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Monthly Unemployment.
As part of the process to generate estimates for the LFS, the CSO also made available a COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment. The estimate for the end of Q2 2020 is calculated by subtracting those who were in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment at the end of June 2020 from the numbers in employment during Q2 2020.
Table 29.1 presents a summary of labour market indicators for Q2 2020.
The Labour Market Insight Series 1 was the first in a series of outputs designed to provide high-level supplementary labour market analysis to users alongside the standard labour market outputs and metrics.
Table 29.2 presents the numbers in employment, the numbers 'Away from Work' and the 'Actual Hours’ worked per week in Q2 2019 and Q2 2020 as well as the annual change and annual percentage changes for each. While the number in employment on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) basis, which stood at 2,222,500 in Q2 2020, is down -77,600 or -3.4% over the year since Q2 2019, the number of persons ‘Away from Work’ (employed but not working) is up 405,700 or 276.7% over the year. As a result, the number of ‘Actual Hours’ worked is down 16.8 million hours per week or 22.1% over the year having stood at 76.0 million hours per week in Q2 2019 and decreased to 59.2 million hours per week in Q2 2020.
| Actual Hours Worked per week | |
| Q2 2019 | 76 |
| Q2 2020 | 59.2 |
A range of measures were introduced by the Government in order to provide income support for those whose employment has been affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is administered by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP), while the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) is administered by the Revenue Commissioners.
| Outflow from PUP | |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 58.3 |
| Industry | 73.7 |
| Construction | 78 |
| Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles | 68.9 |
| Transportation and storage | 51.6 |
| Accommodation and food services | 63.4 |
| Information and communication | 47 |
| Financial, insurance and real estate activities | 51.3 |
| Professional, scientific and technical activities | 57.1 |
| Administrative and support service activities | 51.8 |
| Public administration and defence; compulsory social security | 59.5 |
| Education | 41.6 |
| Human health and social work activities | 67.4 |
| Other NACE activities | 70 |
| Unknown | 58.4 |
| All persons | 62.7 |
Subtracting the number of persons who were in receipt of the PUP for a specific week from the total who have received at least one payment up to that week gives the outflow from PUP.
Preliminary analysis of the outflows from PUP are presented in Table 29.3. While 62.7% of all those who had received at least one payment for PUP had left the scheme by 09 August 2020, breaking the numbers down by sex shows that 64.8% of males had left the scheme compared to 60.1% of females. Those aged 25-44 years were most likely to have left the PUP scheme (65.4% for those aged 25-34 years and 64.7% for those aged 35-44 years) while the youngest and the oldest age groups were least likely to have left the PUP scheme (55.6% for those aged 60 years and over and 57.9% for those aged under 20 years).
Matching the PUP data to administrative data sources from Revenue for the first three months of 2020 identifies the economic sectors that a PUP recipient worked in prior to joining the PUP scheme for approximately 75% of PUP recipients. Looking at the analysis of the outflows by the economic sector that the person worked in prior to receiving the PUP shows that 78% of those persons who had previously been in receipt of PUP and who had worked in the 'Construction' sector had left the scheme by 09 August 2020. This compares with 73.7% for the 'Industry' sector and 68.9% and contrasts with 41.6% for the 'Education' sector.
| Average number of weeks | |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 9.5 |
| Industry | 8.1 |
| Construction | 8.9 |
| Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles | 9.6 |
| Transportation and storage | 8.6 |
| Accommodation and food services | 12.6 |
| Information and communication | 9.8 |
| Financial, insurance and real estate activities | 10.2 |
| Professional, scientific and technical activities | 9.3 |
| Administrative and support service activities | 9.3 |
| Public administration and defence; compulsory social security | 9.9 |
| Education | 9 |
| Human health and social work activities | 7.7 |
| Other NACE activities | 13.3 |
| Unknown | 11.1 |
| All persons | 10.5 |
A number of new questions were added to the LFS questionnaire for Q2 2020 (April to June 2020) to try and capture some relevant information from respondents on the effects of COVID-19 on their labour market situation that would not have been captured in the standard LFS questionnaire.
LFS respondents were asked whether their employment situation had changed due to COVID-19 and they were then asked a series of questions in relation to the type of effect it had on their employment. Results from analysis of those questions are presented in Table 29.4 and Figure 29.4.
| X-axis label | Yes, expect to retun to the same job | Yes, have already returned to the same job | No |
|---|---|---|---|
| PUP recipients | 80.4 | 11.3 | 8.3 |
| TWSS recipients | 65.3 | 32.9 | 1.9 |
| All persons | 71.4 | 21.1 | 7.5 |
Of those persons aged 15 and older who reported having lost employment or been laid off due to COVID-19 in Q2 2020, when interviewed for the LFS in Q2 2020:
Approximately one in 12 (7.5%) indicated that they did not expect to return to the same job once restrictions were lifted
Approximately one in 12 (8.3%) who were in receipt of the PUP indicated that they did not expect to return to the same job once restrictions were lifted
Only 1.9% of those who were benefitting from the TWSS indicated that they did not expect to return to the same job once restrictions were lifted
Approximately one in five (21.1%) indicated that they had already returned to the same job compared to approximately one in nine of those who were receiving the PUP (11.3%) and one in three of those who were benefitting from TWSS (32.9%).
| X-axis label | Employed | Unemployed | Inactive |
|---|---|---|---|
| PUP recipients - ILO | 69.7 | 4.8 | 25.5 |
| PUP recipients - PES | 58.9 | 18.8 | 22.3 |
| TWSS recipients - ILO | 95.4 | 0.1 | 4.5 |
| TWSS recipients - PES | 86.8 | 2.9 | 10.3 |
| All persons - ILO | 55.9 | 3.0 | 41.1 |
| All persons - PES | 51.9 | 6.9 | 41.2 |
Table 29.5 presents the percentages of all persons aged 15 years and older who were in each of the ILO and Principal Economic Status (PES) categories in Q2 2020. The percentage breakdowns by ILO and PES are also presented separately for those who were in receipt of the PUP and for those who benefitted from the TWSS in Q2 2020.
In Q2 2020, Table 29.5 shows that:
For all three groups presented, 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 opposite was the case for those who were classified as 'Unemployed'.
Just over half of all those aged 15 years and older were classified as 'Employed' using the ILO or 'At work' using the PES measure at 55.9% and 51.9% respectively. However, persons were over twice as likely be classified as 'Unemployed' (6.9%) using the PES measure than the objective ILO measure (3.0%).
Of those in receipt of the PUP during the quarter, 69.7% were classified as 'Employed' on the ILO basis, while 58.9% classified themselves as 'At work' using the PES. The corresponding shares for those who were classified as 'Unemployed' were 18.8% for PES and 4.8% for ILO.
Of those in receipt of the TWSS during the quarter, 95.4% were classified as 'Employed' on the ILO basis, while 86.8% self-classified themselves as ‘At work’ using the PES.
Footnote 1 relates to Figure 29.2, Figure 29.3 and Table 29.3
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