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 0.3% in the month to January 2023.
On an annual basis the index increased by 4.8% to January 2023. The female employee index rose by 5.3%, while the male index was up by 4.2% for the same period.
The employee index showed the biggest monthly rise in the 15-19-year-old category (+0.5%), while the 25-34 age group showed the only monthly decrease (-0.1%).
The NACE economic sectors that observed the largest monthly increases in January 2023 were Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+3.8%), followed by Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities (+0.6%).
In the 12 months to January 2023, the Accommodation & Food Service Activities sector saw the largest increase in the number of employees (+12.1%).
Seasonal Adjustment
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.
Revisions and Rounding
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 |
| January 2022 | 2,280,500 | 105.9 | 1.3 | 12.6 |
| December 2022 | 2,382,800 | 110.6 | 0.6 | 5.9 |
| January 2023 | 2,389,100 | 110.9 | 0.3 | 4.8 |
The seasonally adjusted index increased by 8.6% in January 2023 when compared with January 2020. March 2021 was the last month to show a negative annual change (-10.7%) for the employee index when compared with the previous year.
The female and male indices increased on an annual basis by 5.3% and 4.2% respectively. The female indices rose by 0.4%, while males remained unchanged (0.0%) in January 2023 when compared with December 2022.
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 (+11.9%). Those aged 35-44 years increased the least of all age groups (3.1%).
All Economic Sectors showed an annual increase in the employee index when compared with January 2022.
The sectors showing the largest annual increases were Accommodation & Food Services Activities (+12.1%) and Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities (+10.1%). Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw their indices rise by 10.8% and 3.2% respectively in January 2023 when compared with January 2022.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (15 March 2023) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data January 2023.
Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, said: “Six NACE sectors saw monthly increases in the numbers employed in January 2023 and two remained unchanged. The largest monthly increase was seen in Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+3.8%). The remaining seven sectors showed a monthly decline, with the largest monthly decrease in Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing (-1.9%).
The 15-19-year-old age group recorded the largest monthly rise in the employee index (+0.5%). The decline of 0.1% in the 25-34-year-old age group is the only monthly fall across all age groupings in the last three months. All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index.”
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.