The ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Business and the Labour Market’ series one examines the impact of COVID-19 related income supports on payroll employment since Q1 2020. The publication analyses payroll employment from the perspective of the employer business and the employee.
The business analysis tracks the 2020 business population through the pandemic and splits enterprises into four categories based on their change in payroll employment relative to the first quarter of 2020 before COVID related restrictions were initially implemented. For example, if an enterprise had 100 payroll employees in Q1 2020 and 90 payroll employees in Q2 2022 then it would be categorised as “Fewer payroll employees”. However, if they had 99 payroll employees in Q2 2022 then it would be in the “Similar payroll employees” category. See table a.
The population of enterprises in this publication refers to the 2020 Structural Business Statistics (SBS) population and excludes enterprises in Agriculture, Financial Services, Public Administration, Education, Human Health & Social Work, among others. The specific sectors included are NACE B-N (excluding K), R & S. Within this population, the analysis focuses on the enterprises with 3 or more payroll employees in 2020. Since the enterprise population is based on the reference year 2020, any new enterprises that have commenced trading over the period Q1 2021 to Q2 2022 are not captured in this release. See table b.
| Table A Business Categories | |
| Category | % of Revenue PAYE employments compared to Q1 2020& |
|---|---|
| Zero payroll employees | Enterprise had no employments in reference quarter |
| Fewer payroll employees | Between 1% and 95% of Q1 2020 employments in reference quarter |
| Similar levels of payroll employees | Between 95% and 105% of Q1 2020 employments in reference quarter |
| More payroll employees | More than 105% of Q1 2020 employments in reference quarter |
| Table B Business population for analysis | |
| Population | Enterprises |
|---|---|
| SBS population 2020 | 291,489 |
| Enterprises with 0-2 persons engaged | 222,710 |
| Base population for analysis | 68,779 |
The employee analysis utilises the same frame as the business analysis. The series provides estimates of the number/proportion of employees by Age, Sex and NACE sector and support schemes by labour market movements. The cohorts were chosen if they received greater than zero gross pay in Q1 2020 on the PAYE modernisation data flow from the Revenue Commissioners. For employee-based analysis persons were assigned a primary employment in each quarter. This was determined by calculating the gross pay for the quarter in a specific employment and keeping the highest for each person. All analysis was carried out on these primary employments. The results were compiled on the flows of employees in each cohort.
| Table C Labour Market categories | |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| All Persons | Number of Persons |
| Persons in same primary employment as Q1 2020 (%) | Proportion of persons in the same primary employment as they had in Q1 2020 |
| Persons in same NACE sector and different primary employment as Q1 2020 (%) | Proportion of persons who were in the same NACE sector and the primary employment for the quarter was in a different enterprise |
| Persons in a different NACE sector and different primary employment as Q1 2020 (%) | Proportion of persons who were in a different NACE sector and the primary employment for the quarter was in a different enterprise |
| Persons on Live Register and not on PAYE system (%) | Proportion of persons who were present on the Live Register for the quarter and had not received any gross pay from an enterprise within the quarter |
| Other persons (%) | The proportion of persons who didn't fall into any of the above categories. These person's may have left the labour force or are working in self-employment. These include but are not limited to emigrants, retirees, persons who moved to education/home duties/unpaid maternity leave and deceased persons |
The results represent exploratory data matching and analysis by the CSO based on data from the following sources:
The CSO's Central Business Register is a register of all active enterprises in the State. The following sources are used to determine if an enterprise is active during the reference year:
Generally, there is a time lag of 18 months when determining enterprise activity. Therefore, the base population for this release is 2020.
PAYE Modernisation (PMOD) has been operational for all employers in the State since the beginning of 2019. Under this system, employers are required to report their employee’s pay and deductions in real-time to Revenue each time they operate payroll. Information is provided to Revenue at individual payslip level and pseudonymised data is available to the CSO.
Revenue operated the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) from 26 March 2020 to 31 August 2020. The TWSS was available to employers who kept their employees on the payroll throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The TWSS ended on 31 August 2020 and was replaced by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS).
The EWSS is an economy-wide enterprise support that focuses primarily on business eligibility. The scheme provides a flat-rate subsidy to qualifying employers based on the number of eligible employees on the employer’s payroll and gross pay to employees. The data for both the TWSS and EWSS is at individual level and a pseudonymised version is available to the CSO.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is a support for employees and self-employed who have lost their employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The PUP is paid every Tuesday and weekly data on an individual level is made available to CSO. For this publication, PUP recipients matched to their most recent employer prior to PUP payment. For the employee analysis, persons are included in the PUP cohort if the individual received a PUP payment before/during the reference period.
The analysis undertaken in this release excludes the following records from the administrative data sources used. Any records:
Some specific tables are as follows:
The age is calculated in years on the 31st of March 2022
If a person has multiple jobs, these are ranked according to estimated pay and the higher paid employment in the reference quarter is kept for NACE allocation to persons. Estimated pay is calculated by summing the gross pay amount for each employment.
The sectors of economic activity included in the survey were determined in accordance with the NACE Rev. 2 classification scheme, which is the European Commission’s classification system for economic activity. The NACE Rev. 2 sectors included were as follows:
| Table D NACE REV 2 Sectors Included | |
| Sector | Description |
|---|---|
| Sector A | Agriculture, forestry, and fishing |
| Sector B | Mining and quarrying |
| Sector C | Manufacturing |
| Sector D | Electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply |
| Sector E | Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities |
| Sector F | Construction |
| Sector G | Wholesale and retail trade; Repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles |
| Sector H | Transportation and storage |
| Sector I | Accommodation and food service activities |
| Sector J | Information and communication |
| Sector K | Financial and insurance activities |
| Sector L | Real estate activities |
| Sector M | Professional, scientific, and technical activities |
| Sector N | Administrative and support service activities |
| Sector R | Arts, entertainment, and recreation |
| Sector S | Other service activities |
| Sector T | Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods - and services - producing activities of households for own use |
| Sector U | Activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies |
For this release, Cultural and Creative Industries is derived from a list of NACE Rev. 2 activities developed by Eurostat. This list comprises of:
| Table E NACE Rev.2 Cultural and Creative Industries | |
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| C18 | Printing and reproduction of recorded media |
| C3212 | Manufacture of jewellery and related articles |
| C322 | Manufacture of musical instruments |
| G4761 | Retail sale of books in specialised stores |
| G4762 | Retail sale of newspapers and stationery in specialised stores |
| J5811 | Book publishing |
| J5813 | Publishing of newspapers |
| J5814 | Publishing of journals and periodicals |
| J5821 | Publishing of computer games |
| J59 | Motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities |
| J60 | Programming and broadcasting activities |
| J6391 | News agency activities |
| M7111 | Architectural activities |
| M741 | Specialised design activities |
| M742 | Photographic activities |
| M743 | Translation and interpretation activities |
| N7722 | Renting of video tapes and disks |
| R90 | Renting of video tapes and disks |
| R91 | Libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural activities |
For this release, Tourism Industries is derived from a list of NACE Rev. 2 activities developed by Eurostat. This list comprises of:
| Table F NACE Rev.2 Tourism Industries | |
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| Tourism | |
| H5110 | Passenger air transport |
| I5510 | Hotels and similar accommodation |
| I5520 | Holiday and other short-stay accommodation |
| I5530 | Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks |
| N7910 | Travel agency and tour operator activities |
| Partially tourism | |
| H4910 | Passenger rail transport, interurban |
| H4932 | Taxi operation |
| H4939 | Other passenger land transport n.e.c. |
| H5010 | Sea and coastal passenger water transport |
| H5030 | Inland passenger water transport |
| I5610 | Restaurants and mobile food service activities |
| I5630 | Beverage serving activities |
| N7710 | Renting and leasing of cars and trucks |
| N7721 | Renting and leasing of recreational and sports goods |
| N7990 | Other reservation service and related activities |
For this release, Modern sector is derived from a list of NACE Rev. 2 activities developed by for IPT and MSI. This list comprises of:
| Table G NACE Rev.2 Modern Sector | |
| Size Class | Number of Persons Engaged |
|---|---|
| C18 | Printing and reproduction of recorded media |
| C20 | Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products |
| C21 | Manufacture of basic pharmaceuticals products and pharmaceuticals preparations |
| C26 | Manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products |
| C27 | Manufacture of electrical equipment |
| C3250 | Manufacture of medical and dental instruments and supplies |
| J58 | Publishing |
| J59 | Motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities |
| J60 | Programming and broadcasting |
| J61 | Telecommunications |
| J62 | Computer programming, consultancy and related activities |
Enterprise size class is determined by the number of persons engaged as follows:
| Table H Enterprise Size Class | |
| Size | Number of Persons Engaged |
|---|---|
| Micro | 3-9 |
| Small | 10-49 |
| Medium | 50-249 |
| Large | 250+ |
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