Census of Population 2022 - Summary Results

Census 2022 gathered data about whether people were at work, unemployed, studying, retired, looking after the home or family, or unable to work due to sickness or disability. Among workers, the census collected information about their job and the industry of their employer. Questions on how people commute to work, school or college, what means of transport they use and how long their journey takes produce a rich picture of daily commuting in Ireland. Following changes to where many people are based for work in recent years, Census 2022 also gives new insight into the number of people who work from home.

Principal Economic Status

Principal Economic Status in the census measures whether people are at work, unemployed or not in the labour force.

• The number of people aged 15 and over at work in April 2022 stood at 2.3 million, up 16% in six years.

• There were 176,276 unemployed people who had lost or given up their previous job, a decline of 34% since 2016.

• The overall unemployment rate stood at 8%, down from 13% in the previous census.

• The number of people looking after the home/family continued to decline, down 11% over the six years.

• The proportion of people looking after the home/family has steadily declined since the 1980s.

• The number of retired people increased to nearly 658,000, up by 21% from 2016.

Labour Force Participation

Labour force participation measures the proportion of people aged 15 years and over who are either at work or available to work.

• The labour force participation rate remained at 61% in 2022.

• The labour force participation rate for males dropped from 68% to 67% between 2016 and 2022.

• The rate for females increased from 55% to 56%.

• The participation rate for females rose steadily from under 30% in 1981 to 53% in 2006.

• Since 2006, growth in the participation rate for females slowed, increasing from 53% to 56% over the 16 years to 2022.

Labour Force by Age and Sex

Age and sex characteristics among people aged 15 and over who were in the labour force in 2022.

• The participation rates for people aged 25 to 34 years old remained stable over recent censuses for both males and females.  

• For women in all age groups over 35 years, the participation rates showed an increase. 

• Participation rates for men were stable in the 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 age groups but increased in older age cohorts.

• The highest labour force participation for women was 83% in the 25 to 34 years age group.

• Men had the highest level of labour force participation in the 35 to 44 years age group at 93%.

Labour Force by County

Labour force participation among people aged 15 and over at a county level.

• Fingal was the area with the highest labour force participation rate at 66%.

• Donegal and Mayo were the counties with the lowest rate at 57%.

Outside of the Labour Force

The categories of people that are not counted in the labour force are students, those looking after home or family, retired persons and those unable to work due to disability.

• The number of retired people continued to increase and, in 2022, there were more women retired from employment (over 342,000) than men (under 316,000).

• In 2022, there were approximately 245,000 women looking after the home/family, 40,000 fewer than in 2016.

• The number of men looking after the home/family increased by 33% to almost 27,500.

• The category of students aged 15 years and over saw growth of 8% to over 459,000.

• The number of male students was up 5% and the number of female students increased by 10%.

Unemployment

The census unemployment rate is calculated as the number of people who were either looking for their first job or unemployed as a proportion of all people aged 15 and over who were either at work, looking for their first job or unemployed. This is based on the self-declared principal economic status of people completing the census. 

• The unemployment rate, as measured in the census, was 8% in April 2022.

• It fell from 19% in 2011 and 13% in 2016.

• The gap between male and female unemployment narrowed considerably over the last three censuses. 

• In 2022, the male unemployment rate was less than 9% while the female unemployment rate was 8%.

• The unemployment rate fell across all age cohorts.

• The highest unemployment rate in 2022 (16%) was among young adults aged 15 to 24 years, down from 26% in 2016.

Unemployment by County

The census unemployment rate declined in every county between 2016 and 2022.

• The largest drop was in Longford, down from 20% in 2016 to 11% in 2022. 

• The smallest decrease in the unemployment rate was in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, from 7% in 2016 to 6% in 2022.

• However, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown was one of the areas with the lowest levels of unemployment in Ireland. 

Short-term and Long-term Unemployment

In Census 2022, two categories of unemployment were included for the first time, short-term and long-term unemployment. 

• Just under 40% of unemployed people were in short-term unemployment.

• Short-term unemployment was higher among unemployed people aged under 25.

• Long-term unemployment was more prevalent among people in the 25 to 34 years age group and among older cohorts.

Employment by Industrial Sector

A person’s industrial sector in the census is the main business of their employer, or in the case of people who are self-employed, the nature of their business.

• The sector with the most workers employed in 2022 was Wholesale and retail trade with just under 277,000 workers, up by 4% since 2016.

• Human health and social work activities was the second largest sector with almost 270,000 in employment and saw the largest absolute increase of nearly 46,000 since 2016.

• The number of people working in the Construction industry stood at nearly 135,000, up 32% between Census 2016 and Census 2022.

• The numbers working in the Information and communications activities sector increased by 39% to over 125,000.

• Employment in the Professional, scientific and technical activities sector was over 158,000 persons, up 39%.

• Public administration and defence was one of the few sectors that saw a drop in employment between the 2011 and 2016 censuses but grew by 23% to almost 130,000 from 2016 to 2022.

• The number of people working in the Agriculture, forestry and fishing sector fell by 8% to just over 82,000.

Industrial Sector by Sex

In total, 47% of the people in employment were female, but this varied in different sectors of the workforce.

• In the Construction industry, 92% of workers were male. The Agriculture, forestry and fishing sector and Transportation and storage also had large proportions of male workers.

• Human health and social work activities, Education, and the Other service activities groups were among the largest sectors with a high percentage of female workers.

Industrial Sector by Age

The age profile of the workforce varied from sector to sector. Overall, 57% of workers were under the age of 45. 

The three sectors with the highest proportion of workers under 45 years of age were:

• Information and communications activities: over 70% of workers were under the age of 45 and nearly 40% were under the age of 35.

• Accommodation and food service activities: 68% of workers under 45 and 18% under 25.

• Financial and insurance activities: 64% of workers under 45.

The three sectors with the lowest proportion of workers aged under 45 were:

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: 30% of workers were under the age of 45 and 20% were aged 65 and over.

• Transportation and storage: 45% of workers were under 45 years of age.

• Public administration and defence: 46% of workers under the age of 45 and 3% under the age of 25.

Employment Status

The question on employment status breaks down workers into employees, self-employed and those assisting a relative without receiving a fixed wage or salary.

• There were 2.3 million people at work in April 2022, 87% of whom were employees.

• The number of self-employed workers fell since 2016 and accounted for 13% of workers in 2022.

Occupation

All workers were asked to describe their job or occupation in the census.

• There were large increases in the number of employees working in many occupational groups, particularly in professional occupations.

• The number of employees working as Business, media and public service professionals increased by more than 50% to just over 119,000 in the six years to 2022.

• The Science, research, engineering and technology occupational group was up 39% to almost 112,250 employees.

• Self-employed workers saw the largest increase in the Skilled construction and building trades, up 12% to over 34,000.

• The number of self-employed Heath professionals increased by 13% to 12,412.

• The largest drop was in the number of self-employed workers in the Skilled agricultural and related trades which was down 13% to just under 56,500 workers. This was driven mainly by a drop in the number of farmers.

• With the overall fall in unemployment, the number of people out of work decreased across most occupational groups.

• In the Skilled construction and building trades, the number of unemployed people was down almost 60% to under 7,000.

• The number of unemployed people with Elementary trades and related occupations decreased by 44% to just under 6,700.

Working from Home

In 2022, a new question was asked on the census form about whether people ever worked from home.

• Nearly 750,000 people, a third of workers, indicated that they worked from home for at least some part of their week.

• Four out of five Business, media and public service professionals availed of home working.

• The proportion of workers in the Science, research, engineering and technology professionals group who ever worked from home was also high at 78%.

• Workers in Elementary administration and service occupations were the least likely to ever work from home, at just 3%.

• Only 4% of Transport and mobile machine drivers and operatives ever worked from home.

Number of Days Working from Home

People in occupations where relatively few workers ever worked from home were most likely to do so only one day per week.

• These included Health professionals, Skilled construction and building trades and Protective service occupations.

• Over half of workers availing of working from home in the Customer service occupational group were working from home five days a week.

• One occupational group that stands out is the Skilled agricultural and related trades where 62% of people who worked from home said they did so 7 days a week.

Occupation by Full-time and Part-time Status

For the first time, Census 2022 asked people whether they were in work on a full-time or part-time basis.

The three occupational groups where workers were most likely to be part-time were:

• Secretarial and related occupations: 39% of workers.

• Leisure, travel and related personal services: 37% of workers.

• Sales occupations: 36% of workers.

The occupational groups where workers were least likely to be part-time were:

• Science, research, engineering and technology professionals: 94% of workers.

• Science, engineering and technology associate professionals: 93% of workers.

• Protective service occupations: 92% of workers.

Commuting to Work, School, College and Childcare

The census questions on commuting give insight into how and when people travel to their place of work, school, college and childcare.

• The number of people who drove to work increased by 4% to 1.2 million between 2016 and 2022.

• There were 4% fewer people commuting to work by train, LUAS or DART.

• A big increase was recorded in the number of people who work mainly at or from home, up 173% to nearly 260,000.

• Fewer third level students commuted to their place of education on foot or by bike, but more used public transport and cars.

• The dominant form of transport for school children remained the car with 55% of primary school and 42% of secondary school children being driven or driving to school.

• In 2022, there were 88% more primary school children commuting by bicycle than in 2016, and the number of students aged 13 to 18 cycling to school was up 79%.

Time Leaving for Work

Over recent censuses, there has been a trend of commuters leaving earlier to travel to work.

• The number of commuters leaving before 6:30am went up 23% between 2016 and 2022, and the number leaving between 6:30 and 7am increased by 47%.

• Fewer commuters left home between 9 and 9:30am to go to work; down by over 50% compared with 2016.

• The average time taken to travel to work increased slightly across most means of transport over recent censuses.

• In 2022, the average commuting time was just over 29 minutes.

In 2022, there was a change in the format of the question relating to the time leaving home to travel to work. For further information see the Background Notes.

Time Leaving Work

In Census 2022, a new question was asked about what time people usually leave work, school, college or childcare.

• Almost 350,000 workers left their workplace between 16:31 and 17:00 with over 70% of workers leaving by 18:00.

Travel to Childcare

The questions on Census 2022 asking about travel to work, school and college were expanded to include travel to childcare. As a result, an additional category has been included for the first time allowing the analysis of commuting patterns of children aged 0 to 4.

• In total, just over 161,000 children aged 0 to 4 years travelled to school or childcare.

• Almost 120,000 of these children travelled there as a passenger in a car.

• The number of those travelling on foot was just under 28,000 or 17% of the total.