This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
The seasonally adjusted employee index increased by 0.6% in the month to February 2023.
On an annual basis the index increased by 4.2% to February 2023. The female employee index rose by 4.6%, while the male index was up by 3.9% for the same period.
All age groups showed increases in the monthly index in February 2023. The largest increases were observed in the 20-24-year category (+1.2%) and the 15-19-year category (+1.1%).
The NACE economic sectors that observed the largest monthly increases in February 2023 were Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+2.0%), followed by Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities and the Services sector, both of which rose by 0.8%.
In the 12 months to February 2023, the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector saw the largest increase in the number of employees (+10.2%).
The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data release is a very short time series (four years of monthly data) and is thus at the lower limit of acceptable length for the seasonal adjustment process. In the short term, care should be taken in interpreting the seasonally adjusted output. Users should be aware that there is increased uncertainty around the seasonally adjusted figures during the COVID-19 period due to the volatility of the data. Non-seasonally adjusted data are available on PxStat.
The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data is published as a 'Frontier' release, therefore the methodology and data are subject to revision. As more data become available, due to later transmissions from employers, the series may change from month to month. As this particularly affects the most recent months, figures should be considered provisional for the two most recent months for the non-seasonally adjusted data. All figures for monthly percentage change and annual percentage change are calculated prior to the input data being rounded.
| Number of Employees and Employee Index, Monthly and Annual Changes, Seasonally Adjusted | ||||
| Period | Number of Employees | Employee Index (Base year: 2019=100) | Monthly % Change | Annual % Change |
| February 2022 | 2,318,400 | 107.6 | 1.7 | 18.3 |
| January 2023 | 2,400,700 | 111.5 | 0.5 | 5.3 |
| February 2023 | 2,414,600 | 112.1 | 0.6 | 4.2 |
The seasonally adjusted index increased by 4.2% in February 2023 when compared with February 2022. March 2021 was the last month to show a negative annual change (-10.8%) for the employee index when compared with the previous year.
The female and male indices increased on an annual basis by 4.6% and 3.9% respectively. On a monthly basis, the female index rose by 0.7%, while the male index increased by 0.3% in February 2023.
All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index. The age group with the largest annual increase in employees was 65 years and over (+11.1%). Those aged 15-19 years increased the least of all (+2.7%).
All Economic Sectors showed an annual increase in the employee index when compared with February 2022.
The sectors showing the largest annual increases were Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities (+10.2%) and Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+8.5%). Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw their indices rise by 7.7% and 3.4% respectively in February 2023 when compared with February 2022.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (21 April 2023) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data February 2023.
Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, said: “Eight NACE sectors saw monthly increases in the numbers employed in February 2023 and two remained unchanged. The largest monthly increase was seen in Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+2.0%). The remaining five sectors showed a monthly decline, with the largest monthly decrease in Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities (-0.3%).
All age groups saw monthly increases in the employee index. The 20-24-year age group recorded the largest monthly rise in the employee index (+1.2%).”
Data from this publication supplement those in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) quarterly series, which is the official measure of both employment and unemployment for the State. Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data are of particular relevance to LFS Seasonally Adjusted Estimates and Employment outputs.