Earnings And Labour Costs Q4 2005-Q4 2006

Earnings and Labour Costs, Q4 2005 to Q4 2006

The Earnings and Labour Costs release is the first publication of results from the new quarterly Earnings, Hours and Employment Costs Survey (EHECS). It covers the period from Q4 2005 to Q4 2006 inclusive.

In addition to wages and salaries, labour costs include items such as social security payments by employers (both statutory and voluntary), benefits in kind, training costs, and recruitment costs etc. The survey covers all enterprises with 3 or more employees in the industrial and financial sectors.

The results show that:

• Hourly earnings rose by 5.7% in the industrial sector and by 6.2% in the financial sector between Q4 2005 and Q4 2006. In Q4 2006 hourly earnings were €19.82 in industry and €27.60 in the financial sector. Within industry hourly earnings were €33.43 per hour in the electricity, gas and water supply sector, €22.93 for mining and quarrying and €19.15 per hour in the manufacturing sector.
• There was a rise of 4,800 in persons employed in the financial sector (74,300 to 79,100) and a fall of 4,800 (245,800 to 241,000) in the industrial sector in 2006.
• Average paid hours per week were 37.6 in industry in Q4 2006 while it was 34.2 hours per week in the financial sector.
• Hourly earnings excluding irregular bonuses rose by 5% in the industrial sector and by 6.8% in the financial sector from Q4 2005 to Q4 2006. Irregular earnings rose from €0.91 to €1.08 for industry and fell very slightly from €2.28 to €2.27 in the financial sector over the same period.
• Between Q4 2005 and Q4 2006, hourly labour costs rose by 5.3% in the industrial sector to €23.83 per hour and by 1.6% in the financial sector to €34.77 per hour.
• Wages and salaries made up 83.1% of total labour costs in Q4 2006 in the industrial sector, while PRSI was another 8.1%. In the financial sector, wages and salaries were lower as a percentage of total labour costs at 79.4% while PRSI was slightly higher at 8.4%.

The EHECS will replace existing earnings surveys such as the quarterly industrial inquiry and the quarterly banking, insurance and building societies inquiry that will now be discontinued. The EHECS survey will be extended to cover the other sectors of the economy in 2008.

For further information contact

Paul Crowley, Senior Statistician (021-453 5090) or

Bernadette Cabry, Statistician (021-453 5308)

LoCall: 1890 313 414

Internet www.cso.ie
Email: ehecs@cso.ie

17 August 2007

- ENDS -

• › Back to top