In addition to offering employment that is fairly compensated, providing decent working conditions and inclusive opportunities may benefit employers in terms of attracting and retaining staff.
This chapter shows:
Data on gender of members on board of directors is reported in the CSO, Gender Balance in Business Survey releases.
In 2025, 27.9% of members on boards of directors in Ireland were female, compared with 24.6% in 2023. Overall, almost a third (32.3%) of senior executives in 2025 were female, up from 30.4% in 2023. More than a quarter (27.7%) of chief financial officers (CFOs) were female, up from 25.7% in 2023. There was also a slight increase in the proportion of female chief executive officers (CEOs) in 2025 (19.2%) when compared with 2023 (19.0%). The number of female chairpersons decreased from 18.7% in 2023 to 17.8% in 2025. See Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1.
Accommodation & Food Service Activities (41.9%) and Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities (41.9%) had the highest proportion of female senior executives in 2025, followed by Financial & Insurance Activities (38.5%). Although the Construction sector had the lowest level of female representation in senior executive roles in 2025 at 15.2%, it has increased from 13.4% in 2023. See Figure 5.2 and Table 5.2.
Data on gender representation in employment is reported in the CSO, Distribution of Earnings by Gender and County releases.
In 2024, gender representation across total employments was relatively equal; 50.6% of total employments were represented by males while 49.4% were represented by females.
There was greater disparity in gender representation among high earners. Among employments with earnings in the top 25%, males accounted for 61.0% while females accounted for 39.0%. Among employments with earnings in the top 10%, males represented 69.4%, while the corresponding figure for females was 30.6%. See Figure 5.3.
In 2024, males represented a higher proportion of the total employments in eight of the 13 economic sectors compared with females, however they accounted for the majority of employments in all sectors when looking at the top 10% of earners in each sector.
In the Industry sector, the proportion of male and female employments was relatively consistent between all employments and the top 10% of earners. In this male dominated sector, males accounted for 70.6% of total employments, while the remaining 29.4% of employments were held by females. Among the top 10% of earners employed in this sector, most were males (76.5%), compared with females (23.5%). See Figure 5.4 and Table 5.3.
Data on discrimination in the workplace is reported in the CSO, Equality and Discrimination releases.
At an overall level, some 7.0% of people felt discriminated against in the workplace in 2024, with bullying or harassment (35.0%) and work conditions (26.0%) being the most commonly reported areas of discrimination reported by individuals who experienced discrimination in the workplace. See Table 5.4.
Respondents who had experienced discrimination in the workplace in the previous two years (prior to interview) were asked about their perceived focus of this discrimination. Bullying or harassment (35.0%) followed by work conditions (26.0%) were the most commonly reported areas of discrimination in the workplace for respondents. See Figure 5.5 and Table 5.5.
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option.
Data on job satisfaction was collected as part of the CSO, Personal and Work-Life Balance-Job and Life Satisfaction and Barriers to Work release.
In 2021, the majority of employees were satisfied with their job – over one quarter (25.9%) were very satisfied, while nearly two thirds (63.0%) were satisfied. One in nine were not happy in their job - one in eleven (9.1%) were dissatisfied (rating of 3-51) while 2.0% were very dissatisfied (rating of 0-21). See Figure 5.6.
1Ratings were given on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 was 'not satisfied at all' and 10 was 'completely satisfied'.
| Job satisfcation | |
| Satisfied | 63 |
| Very satisfied | 25.9 |
| Dissatisfied | 9.1 |
| Very dissatisfied | 2 |
Data on the extent of working from home is collected as part of the CSO, Labour Force Survey releases.
Two-thirds (65.9%) of those in employment in Q4 2025 stated that they never work at home (1,865,600).
Almost a fifth (18.7%) of people in employment (employees and self-employed) in Q4 2025 said that they usually (more than half the time) work from home, down from a peak of 37.5% in Q1 2021 (which would have been influenced by COVID-19 measures at the time).
Of the 956,800 people who reported that they work from home at least some of the time in Q4 2025, 530,500 said that they usually (more than half the time). A further 426,300 people sometimes (at least one hour in the reference period) worked from home in Q4 2025, up from 145,900 in Q1 2021. See Figure 5.7 and Table 5.6.
The Information & Communication sector (58.0%) and the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector (52.3%) had the highest rates of individuals who usually work from home. See Table 5.7.
Data on trade union membership is reported in the CSO, Labour Force Survey releases.
In Q4 2025, 23.5% of employees were members of a trade union, this is a reduction from 26.6% in Q2 2020. In Q4 2025, 25.7% of employees in the Services sector and 16.0% of employees in Industry (including construction) were members of a trade union. See Table 5.8 and Table 5.9.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.