Domestic Industrial Production January 2025

Introduction

The Industrial Production and Turnover (IPT) release series monitors the volume of production and value of turnover of industrial local units. Since 2015, contract manufacturing and outsourcing represent a large part of the Irish industrial economy, introducing short-term volatility into the IPT indices. The CSO’s treatment of contract manufacturing in the IPT follows the definitions set out in the UN 2010 International Recommendations for the Index of Industrial Production.

Based on these recommendations outsourced production is included as part of an enterprise’s Irish production. As a result, stakeholders have sought additional indicators that provide insights into domestic manufacturing. In response, the CSO has developed a Domestic Production Index, which from now on will be published every quarter, to better describe domestic manufacturing activity within Ireland. The new frontier index has been developed in collaboration with key users of CSO Enterprise statistics to ensure that it effectively addresses user needs.

This new index incorporates updated survey data from 2021 and applies domestic weights derived from a proportion of total production weights. This proportioning is based directly on data received from enterprises. This methodology enhances the accuracy of the index and as a result, it delivers a much clearer and more dependable measure of the industrial economy in Ireland. The Domestic Production Indices are calculated at constant prices, using the Wholesale Price Index (Base year 2021=100) as deflators.

As this release is published as a CSO Frontier Series, care must be taken when interpreting these results as methodologies may change and data sources may develop further as the series develops.

Key Figures

Seasonal Adjustment

The commentary in the monthly Industrial Production and Turnover release focuses primarily on seasonally adjusted data. Seasonal adjustment is concerned with identifying the seasonal fluctuations and calendar effects within a time series and then subsequently removing these fluctuations from the data. Seasonally adjusted data adds value to users by providing clear insights into the evolution of the trend over time and by providing more meaningful period on period comparisons.

Currently, the frontier Domestic Production Index series is too brief to apply seasonal adjustment models effectively. After review however, it has been determined that no seasonality is present within this series, and therefore, only unadjusted figures are being produced at this time. As the series develops over time, a seasonally adjusted series will be made available.