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These are audio files with quotes from Dr Eimear Heffernan, CSO Statistician with the Labour Market & Earnings Division, about the Detailed Analysis of Earnings Distribution for 2023.
Media outlets have permission to use the clips, provided that the CSO is credited.
Tell us about the distribution of earnings in 2023?
When it comes to earnings, we can see that more than a quarter of employments earned less than €450 per week in 2023, and many of these were aged under 25.
One interesting aspect was that around one in three women earned less than €450 per week, compared with around one in five men. In contrast, just over 10% of employments had weekly earnings of at least €1,500.
What about the trends among highest and lowest earners?
Looking at the trends amongst the highest and lowest earners, while weekly earnings rose across various earnings brackets, the actual gap in weekly earnings
between the bottom 10% of earners and those in the top 10% has widened.
In 2016 the gap between these two groups was around €1,100 per week, compared with €1,400 per week in 2023.
Was there an increase in weekly earnings across all sectors?
Looking at which sectors earn the most, we can see that overall, median weekly earnings went up by over 4% in 2023, but the growth wasn’t the same for all sectors.
For example, the annual increase in median weekly earnings among those employed in the Information & Communication sector was more than double that recorded among sectors such as Transportation & Storage and Education.
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