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Key Findings

Over one in five employments (22.5%) in the Information & Communication sector earned more than €2,250 per week

CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Key Findings

  • One in three female employments (32.1%) had weekly earnings of less than €450 in 2023, compared with one in five male employments (19.4%).

  • More than one in ten employments (12.8%) earned €1,500 or more per week.

  • Among employments with higher earnings, the proportion of males tended to be greater compared with females.

  • Employments within the private sector accounted for almost four in every five employments (79.1%). Although they remained a higher proportion throughout, the proportion of employments represented by the private sector tended to decrease with increased earnings.

  • Despite comparable annual growth across earnings bands, the gap in weekly earnings between employments with earnings in the bottom 10% (10th earnings percentile) and the top 10% (90th earnings percentile) increased in recent years, from €1,077.32 in 2016 to €1,416.22 in 2023.

  • In terms of weekly earnings, employments in the Human Health & Social Work sector accounted for more than half (57.3%) of the employments recorded in the 10th earnings percentile in 2023, while the Industry sector contributed the largest proportion of employments to the 90th percentile (15.6%).

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 December 2024) published Detailed Analysis of Earnings Distribution for 2023.

Commenting on the release, Dr Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Earnings Analysis Division of the CSO, said: “This release provides a detailed analysis of the distribution of earnings in Ireland in 2023, based on the Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS) dataset. It is important to consider the compositional effect of the workforce when analysing earnings estimates. For example, comparing the median earnings among youth employments (ages 15-24 years) with those of the general working population (ages 25-64 years) exhibits the impact of age on earnings. Overall in 2023, more than one-quarter (25.7%) of all employments earned less than €450 per week, with a sizeable portion (36.8%) of these employments aged under 25 years.

Weekly Earnings by Sex

In terms of the disparity in the distribution of weekly earnings by sex, a greater proportion of female employments were at the lower end of the distribution compared with their male counterparts. Almost one in three female employments (32.1%) had weekly earnings of less than €450, compared with almost one in five male employments (19.4%). It is important to note that data in relation to hours worked is not available in the EAADS dataset, however data provided by the CSO's Labour Force Survey (LFS) can provide further context around average hours worked (QLF25, QLF33, QLF36). Table QLF33 shows that in Quarter 4 2023, males had higher average hours worked per week (38.3), compared with their female counterparts (31.8). This was the case across all age groups throughout each quarter of the reference year 2023. 

In terms of higher earners, 12.8% of employments had weekly earnings of €1,500 or more. Less than one in ten females were in this cohort (8.9%), while 16.8% of males had weekly earnings of €1,500 or more.

Economic Sector

Five economic sectors recorded annual growth in median weekly earnings less than that of the overall annual increase in 2023 (4.2%), including Transportation & Storage (2.7%), Education (3.0%), and Public Administration & Defence (3.6%). In contrast, the annual increase in median weekly earnings among employments in the Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities (6.7%) and Information & Communication (6.6%) sectors was more than double the increase recorded among employments in both the Transportation & Storage (2.7%) and the Education (3.0%) sectors.

Almost two in every three employments in the Accommodation & Food Services sector had weekly earnings of less than €450 (63.2%), while more than half of employments in the Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services sector had similar earnings (53.2%). This compares with the Information & Communication sector where more than one in five employments (22.5%) had weekly earnings of €2,250 or more.

Employments within the private sector accounted for almost eight in ten employments (79.1%). Although they remained a higher proportion throughout, the proportion represented by private sector employments tended to decrease with increased earnings. Within the private sector, more than six in ten employments had weekly earnings of less than €750 (60.9%), compared with less than three in ten in the public sector (29.3%). The age distribution of employees in each sector likely had an impact on the earnings estimates provided. The median age among employments within the private sector was 38 years, while the median age among employments in the public sector was higher, at 44 years, in 2023.

Earnings Percentiles

Median weekly earnings rose by 4.2% from €670.90 in 2022 to €699.28 in 2023. Despite comparable growth across the earnings deciles, the gap in weekly earnings among employments in the 10th and 90th earnings percentiles has grown in recent years. The 10th earnings percentile refers to the employments with earnings in the bottom 10%, while the 90th percentile refers to employments with earnings in the top 10%. In 2023, employments in the 90th percentile (€1,663.72) had weekly earnings more than six times higher than those in the 10th percentile (€247.50), a difference of €1,416.22 per week, compared with a difference of €1,077.32 per week in 2016.

In general, the proportion of employments held by males tended to be greater compared with females, particularly across higher earnings percentiles. There was a notable difference in the proportion of male employments compared with their female counterparts in the 90th percentile, where males accounted for more than six in ten employments (60.8%). The opposite was the case among employments in the 20th earnings percentile, where females accounted for more than six in ten employments (60.6%).

In general, weekly earnings tended to increase with age. Employments among those aged 15-24 years accounted for 15.4% of employments in the 10th percentile, compared with less than 1.0% of the 90th percentile (0.4%). However, those aged 50 years or more represented almost half of the employments in the 10th percentile (47.8%), while those aged 40-49 years accounted for the largest proportion of employments in the 90th percentile, at 35.9%, in 2023.

In terms of economic sector, employments in the Human Health & Social Work sector represented more than half of the employments in the 10th earnings percentile, at 57.3%, while the Industry (15.6%) and the Information & Communication (21.2%) sectors contributed the largest proportion of employments to the 90th and 95th earnings percentiles, respectively, in 2023.”

Editor's Note

This analysis is based on the annual datasets produced for Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS). Further details, including data sources and methodology, can be found in the Background Notes of the release. In line with Eurostat requirements relating to Structure of Earnings Statistics (in particular Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999) the data used for this analysis has been restricted to employments that were active in the month of October of the reference year. Please note that the Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of employment estimates.

Headline Table

Mean and median1 earnings estimates by sex, 2018 - 2023
 201820192020202120222023
Mean Weekly Earnings
Male822.35858.25903.33928.07969.671,011.16
Female621.70647.50696.91712.10741.50779.12
Total722.47753.58801.41820.95856.21895.51
Median Weekly Earnings
Male636.63666.22690.56711.87741.86770.52
Female500.00523.10561.23570.22592.92623.22
Total573.35598.36629.46644.55670.90699.28
Mean Annual Earnings
Male49,93151,63056,17157,34858,61260,816
Female37,52038,86243,69344,43345,15146,915
Total43,83045,37550,07651,06852,05353,995
Median Annual Earnings
Male39,27940,51744,10544,89245,53747,187
Female32,01433,05637,46237,89437,78239,039
 Total35,78637,00140,57941,22241,82343,221
Source: CSO Ireland, Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources
1Median earnings: Half of employments earn more than this amount and half earn less.