Press Statement

Preasráiteas

09 September 2020

Go to release: Monthly Unemployment August 2020

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (09 September 2020) issued Monthly Unemployment Estimates results in respect of August 2020.

Catalina Gonzalez, CSO Statistician, explains the approach taken today regarding the publication of the Monthly Unemployment and the COVID-19 Adjusted Unemployment Estimates:

‘Those persons in receipt of the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) at the end of August 2020 do not meet the internationally agreed criteria to be considered as unemployed for the purposes of the compilation of the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates.

Therefore, the CSO is producing a supplementary measure of unemployment in parallel with the routine Monthly Unemployment Estimates.

This COVID-19 Adjusted Monthly Unemployment measure includes those in receipt of the PUP in the calculation of the adjusted unemployment rate. It should be considered as the upper bound for the true rate of unemployment and the standard monthly rate as the lower bound.

This approach preserves the methodology of the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates series while at the same time providing transparency around the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market (see Information Note on Implications of COVID-19 on the Live Register and the Monthly Unemployment Estimates – March 2020 and the updated Technical Note for Monthly Unemployment and COVID-19 Adjusted Estimates – August 2020 for more details).

Commenting on today’s publication, Catalina Gonzalez continued:

 ‘The COVID-19 crisis has continued to have a significant impact on the labour market in Ireland in August 2020. While the standard measure of Monthly Unemployment is 5.2% in August 2020, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate as high as 15.4% if all claimants of the PUP were classified as unemployed.

The Monthly Unemployment Rate for August 2020 using standard methodology is 5.2%, up from 5.1% in July 2020. In August 2020, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for males and females are 5.1% and 5.3% respectively. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the Monthly Unemployment Rate for those aged 15 to 24 years is 17.5% while it is 3.8% for those aged 25 to 74 years.

As well as the standard Monthly Unemployment Estimates for August 2020, the CSO have also published an alternative COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment that estimates the share of the labour force in August 2020 that were not working due to unemployment or who were out of work due to COVID-19 and receiving the PUP.

If all claimants of the PUP were classified as unemployed, this COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 14.8% for males and 16.1% for females. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the new COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 37.8% for those aged 15 to 24 years and 12.6% for those aged 25 to 74 years.’

Finally, commenting on recent changes to the COVID-19 income supports such as the PUP and the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), Catalina Gonzalez added:

“The COVID-19 income supports were originally set up as short-term emergency income supports but they have been extended several times and there have been changes made in terms of the eligibility criteria and how they are being administered. While the PUP and the TWSS were both expected to cease in August, the latest announcements have indicated that the PUP is expected to continue into 2021 while the TWSS has been replaced by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme from 01 September 2020. The CSO will continue to evaluate the current income support schemes and any new schemes to determine whether any changes are required to the methodology for our traditional or COVID-19 adjusted estimates. Any changes we may make to the methodology in the future will be clearly outlined to users in the statistical release and accompanying material.”

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