Statistical Yearbook of Ireland 2021: Part 3 Travel, Agriculture, Environment and COVID-19

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of labour market statistics for Ireland including the official rates of employment and unemployment. These official measures are based on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) concepts and definitions. The ILO measures are the international standard and all EU Member States are legally obliged to compile and provide this data to Eurostat on a quarterly basis through the LFS. These ILO criteria are one reason why the LFS may not fully capture the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market.

As the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is obliged to follow standard definitions and methodology when calculating official estimates from the LFS. The Quarter 2 2021 LFS estimates were compiled in the usual way and separate COVID-19 adjusted estimates were also provided. This approach preserves the methodology of the LFS while at the same time providing transparency around the impact of COVID-19 on the Labour Market within Ireland.

Since March 2020, the CSO has also produced an extra COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Monthly Unemployment. This measure adds people who receive the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) to the monthly estimate of unemployed persons.

This additional measure was most recently published in the Monthly Unemployment Estimates for September 2021 and will be continued as long as the CSO deem necessary.

Since Q1 2020, the CSO has also produced a COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment as part of the LFS. The measure subtracts people receiving the PUP at the end of each quarter from the numbers in employment as measured by the LFS.

There is not enough information currently available to determine the official labour market status for those individuals receiving the PUP. Given this uncertainty, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment can be seen as the upper bound or highest possible value for unemployment, while the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Employment can be seen as the lower bound or the lowest possible value for employment.

These COVID-19 Adjusted Measures are subject to change if information becomes available that allows a better estimate to be calculated of the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market in Ireland.

In the LFS, a person can still be classified as Employed even if absent (‘Away’) 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 that combined with 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.

Table 32.2 above presents the numbers in employment, the numbers absent (‘Away’) from work and the ‘Actual Hours’ worked per week for Q2 2019 to Q2 2021. The annual changes and annual percentage changes to Q2 2020 and Q2 2021 are also presented. While the numbers in employment on the ILO basis, which stood at 2,349,100 in Q2 2021, was up 211,000 or 9.9% over the year since Q2 2020, the number of employed persons who were absent from work was down 247,600 or 52.8% to 220,900. This resulted in an increase of 14.9 million in the number of hours worked to 75.9 million hours in Q2 2021, having stood at 61.0 million hours per week in Q2 2020.

The effects of COVID-19 were very apparent in Q2 2020 as many of the public health measures were in force for the whole quarter. The number of absences from work was up by 325,700 or 228.1% from the same quarter in 2019 and this led to a fall of 17.5 million or 22.3% in the number of hours worked in the reference week (See Px Stat QLF36).

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), which operated from March 2020 and closed to new applicants from 8 July 2021, is administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP). The Revenue Commissioners administer the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) which replaced the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) in September 2020. There were a small number of EWSS claims in July and August 2020 in respect of newly hired or seasonally hired employees who were ineligible for the TWSS.

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. The outflow represents the number of persons who have left the PUP scheme up to that point in time. Subtracting the number of persons in receipt of PUP for the week ending 29 August 2021 (143,606) from the total who have received at least one payment from the scheme up to and including that week (871,474) yields an estimate of 727,868 persons who can be considered to have left the PUP scheme by 29 August 2021. Thus, the outflow from PUP as at 29 August 2021 is estimated to be 727,868 persons; this outflow is equivalent to 83.5% of all those who had received at least one payment from the scheme up to that point.

Preliminary analysis of the outflows from PUP are presented in Table 32.3. While 83.5% of all those who had received at least one payment for PUP had left the scheme by 29 August 2021, breaking the numbers down by sex shows that 84.2% of males had left the scheme compared to 82.6% of females. Those aged under 20 years were most likely to have left the PUP scheme (85.5%) while the oldest age group were least likely to have left the PUP scheme (78.6% for those aged 60 years).

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 return 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 32.4 above presents the percentages of all persons aged 15 years and older who were in each of the ILO and PES categories in Q2 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 benefitted from the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) in Q2 2021.

In Q2 2021, Table 32.4 shows that:

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 58.5% while it was 55.2% for those ‘At work’ using the PES measure.

Of those in receipt of the PUP in the reference week in Q2 2021, 59.5% were classified as Employed on the ILO basis while 54.5% classified themselves as ‘At work’ using the PES.

On the other hand, 96.0% of those in receipt of the EWSS were classified as Employed on the ILO basis while 89.7% self-classified themselves as ‘At work’ using the PES

Table 32.4 also shows that, in Q2 2021:

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

Persons in receipt of the PUP in the reference week in Q2 2021 were more likely to self-classify themselves as Unemployed using PES (21.0%) than when objectively classified as Unemployed on the ILO basis (17.1%).

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 5.5% 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 0.9% 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 (39.3%) that when assessed on an ILO basis (36.9%).

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 9.1% compared to being classified as Inactive using the ILO criteria (3.1%).