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Press Statement

Preasráiteas

08 April 2022

Live Register March 2022

The seasonally adjusted Live Register increased by 10.3% to 181,900 over the month to March 2022
  • Unadjusted Live Register total stood at 178,996 for March 2022
  • Seasonally adjusted Live Register total for March 2022 was 181,900, up 17,000 from February 2022
  • Of the 178,996 persons on the Live Register in March 2022, 55.4% were male, 79.0% were Irish and around a quarter were in each of the 25-34-year-old (22.4%) and 35-44-year-old (23.8%) age groups.
  • Of the 258,952 persons currently estimated to have been directly supported by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) in February 2022, 46.8% were male and 53.2% were female
  • In February 2022, 465,634 persons were on the Live Register or were benefitting from the PUP or the EWSS, down from 939,789 in February 2021

Go to release: Live Register March 2022

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (08 April 2022) issued results from the Live Register in respect of March 2022. 

Please note that the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme has ended, final payments issued were in respect of the week ending Friday 25 March 2022. All PUP recipients have either transferred to a Jobseeker’s scheme or had their PUP claim closed, either because they did not apply for a jobseeker’s payment or they do not have an entitlement e.g. they are in receipt of another scheme payment, or are pending a decision on their jobseeker claim. The PUP detail, previously published in Table A2 of the Live Register release and PxStat series LRM20, is no longer available from March 2022. The monthly PUP scheme time series was published for the reference months March 2020 until February 2022.

Commenting on today’s publication, Morgan O’Donnell, CSO Statistician, said:

“The unadjusted Live Register total for March 2022 was 178,996. When seasonal effects are considered, the seasonally adjusted Live Register total for March 2022 was 181,900, which is an increase of 17,000 persons from February 2022.

Commenting on monthly estimates of the numbers being directly supported by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), Morgan O’Donnell continued:

“The CSO have included monthly estimates of the number of persons being supported by the EWSS up to February 2022 in the Live Register release and in the Pxstat series LRM20. While the Live Register is a weekly scheme, the availability of the EWSS data depends on an employee’s pay frequency which could be weekly, fortnightly, every four weeks or monthly. Because of these differing pay frequencies, and the time it takes for employers to lodge payslip data with the Revenue Commissioners before it is made available to the CSO for dissemination purposes, there is a lag on the availability of the EWSS estimates in the same way there was for the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) estimates in 2020.

Of the 258,952 persons currently estimated to have been directly supported by the EWSS in February 2022, 46.8% were male and 53.2% were female while 24.9% were aged under 25 and 75.1% were aged 25 years and over.

The total number of persons that were on the Live Register or who benefitted from the COVID-19 income supports (PUP, TWSS or EWSS) to February 2022 has also been made available today.

In February 2022, 465,634 persons were on the Live Register or were benefitting from the PUP, TWSS or the EWSS. Of those, 51.1% were male and 48.9% were female, while 18.4% were aged under 25 and 81.6% were aged 25 years and over. The number of persons supported by all schemes was down from the 939,789 recorded in February 2021. February 2022 is the current low point of the series, while January 2022 (501,194) is the next lowest point of the series. The current high point of the series was reached in April 2020 (1,179,448). The COVID-19 income support schemes were introduced in March 2020 and the first payment of the PUP referred to the week ending 22 March 2020, while the TWSS was first paid on 24 March 2020, but could relate to earlier payslips.”

Commenting on further weekly aggregates of the COVID-19 income supports, Morgan O’ Donnell added:

Tables providing the breakdowns of the numbers on the Live Register or receiving the PUP each week from March 2020 through to the week ending 27 March 2022 by sex, age group, county and nationality grouping are being made available today. These tables also contain breakdowns of the number of people being directly supported by the EWSS and the estimated number of persons benefitting from the PUP, TWSS or EWSS up to the week ending 27 February 2022 (See PxStat).” 

Editor's Note:

The PUP was administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP). It was initially closed to new applicants from 08 July 2021. Under the Economic Recovery Plan, there was also a gradual reduction in rates from 07 September 2021 while the process of possible transition of PUP recipients to a jobseeker’s payment began on 26 October 2021. The scheme reopened for individuals, including the self-employed, who lost their employment between 07 December 2021 and 22 January 2022 following the introduction of COVID-19 related public health restrictions. The PUP scheme ended on 25 March 2022.

The TWSS was replaced by the EWSS from 01 September 2021, and it is currently expected to continue until 30 April 2022. There are some EWSS claims for July and August 2020 in respect of newly hired or seasonally hired employees who were ineligible for the TWSS. Both the TWSS and the EWSS schemes have been administered by the Revenue Commissioners who have provided TWSS and EWSS data to the CSO for statistical purposes and dissemination to users. Monthly and weekly estimates of the numbers being directly supported by the EWSS are included in PxStat tables published today.

The income support payments are not captured in the traditional methodology of the Live Register which is a historical series that includes the number of claimants for Jobseeker's Benefit and Jobseeker's Assistance (see the Information Note on Implications of COVID-19 on the Live Register and the Monthly Unemployment Estimates for more details).

A review of non-recipient Live Register claims is ongoing at the DSP relating primarily to cases where a person who received a PUP payment has since closed their PUP claim and reported a return to employment. This may impact the Live Register totals, as some of these non-recipient jobseeker claims were included on the Live Register, but their jobseeker claims were not automatically closed at that time (see the Technical Note published by the CSO to accompany the Live Register, August 2020 release for more information).

It should be noted that DSP, where applicable, paid arrears to recipients of the PUP, to take account of the movement of people in and out of employment. The first arrears payment occurred on 01 December 2020. All PUP arrears paid were included in the week of the entitlement period, rather than the week of payment.

The CSO has decided to compile the Live Register data for March 2022 in the traditional way and provide details of COVID-19 income support payments (see CSO LRW07, LRW08, LRW13-LRW18) separately. An analysis of the Live Register total broken down by recipient and non-recipient claims is available in Annex Table A3 in the Live Register release.

The CSO will continue to evaluate the available income support schemes and the results of the recipient and non-recipient analysis to determine whether any changes are required to the methodology for the Live Register to improve the usability of the series. Any changes the CSO may make to the methodology in the future will be clearly outlined to users in the statistical release and accompanying material.

Enquiries:

Morgan O'Donnell, Labour Market Analysis - (+353) 85 804 9155

See COVID-19 Information Hub

For further information contact:

Martina O'Callaghan (+353) 21 453 5491

or email labour@cso.ie

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