The COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions applied in response to it had a significant impact on the labour market between 2020 and 2022. Earnings statistics for those years and comparisons with earlier years are impacted by changes in the composition of the labour market during this period and when compared with 2019 and earlier years. The level of earnings has also been impacted by the COVID-19 income support schemes in place since 2020.
Please note: An active employment is one that was active in October of the reference year. Earnings included in this analysis are gross earnings, before deductions such as income tax, and include any taxable benefit in kind. Unless otherwise stated earnings included in this analysis are inclusive of Wage Subsidy Schemes (WSS) where applicable.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official source of estimates of employment.
When considering the annual change in earnings between 2021 and 2022, it should be noted that there may be a compositional effect due to significant changes in the number of active employments in certain sectors. The composition of the labour market during this period was very different to previous years. The changes in average weekly earnings in any sector may be impacted to some degree by those employments that have joined/left the sector having lower/higher average earnings than those employments that remained in the sector in the years being analysed.
Comparing 2021 and 2022, the number of active employments increased by 6.3%, with all 13 economic sectors showing increases. The largest increases were recorded in the Accommodation & Food Services sector (16.7%), followed by the Information & Communication sector (11.9%) (See Table 2.1).
Between 2021 and 2022, median weekly earnings increased by 4.1% across all employments, with increases evident across all economic sectors. The largest rate of increase was recorded in the Information & Communication sector (10.2%) followed by the Transportation & Storage sector at 6.4% (See Table 2.1).
To provide further context, and taking into consideration the compositional effect mentioned above, an analysis of earnings for employments that were active in both 2021 and 2022 was prepared and is presented below. For each year, a matched dataset was created of all employments that were active in October of both years.
Of the total employments that were active in October 2021, 73.6% were also active in October 2022. The proportion of employments active in both years varied by sector. The sector with the highest proportion of employments active in both years was Public Administration & Defence (88.5%), while the lowest proportion was in Accommodation & Food Services (53.9%).
For employments that were active in both 2021 and 2022, median weekly earnings increased by 7.7%. Median weekly earnings increased across all 13 economic sectors between 2021 and 2022. The largest rates of increase were recorded in the Information & Communication (11.7%) and the Transportation & Storage sectors (8.9%) (See Table 2.2).
WSS were introduced in 2020 in an effort to support the earnings of certain employments impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) operated in two phases: a transitional phase from 26 March to 03 May 2020 and an operational phase from 04 May to 31 August 2020. The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), which replaced the TWSS, became operational from 01 September 2020. A two-rate structure of €151.50 and €203.00 was introduced in February 2022, followed by the introduction of a flat rate subsidy of €100.00 in March 2022. EWSS remained in place for most businesses until 30 April 2022 and ceased across all economic sectors on 31 May 2022.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme, which was administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP), provided a social welfare payment to those who lost their employment due to the COVID-19 crisis. Any payments related to the PUP scheme are not included in this analysis. Such payments were paid by DSP to a person who had lost income from employment and where no attachment in the form of an employment contract was maintained between the employer and employee.
For employments which were active in October 2022, 8.8% were supported by the EWSS at some point during 2022, a considerable decrease from 20.0% in 2021. The proportion of employments supported by EWSS varied across different sectors of the economy. In 2022, the sectors with the highest proportion of employments supported were Accommodation & Food Services (44.2%), Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services (26.0%) and Transportation & Storage (19.0%).
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Industry (B-E) | 33.6687391256738 | 13.5503067030109 | 2.40442233940556 |
| Construction (F) | 50.2047906381423 | 31.6905424614625 | 6.05378099888191 |
| Wholesale & retail (G) | 39.6089707065782 | 19.6533704881013 | 4.37572444660979 |
| Transportation & storage (H) | 51.0495361062897 | 33.3106364678899 | 18.9793692831549 |
| Accommodation & food (I) | 81.8923808019755 | 78.110838678605 | 44.1827962536523 |
| Information & communication (J) | 15.6960484009056 | 6.69882734615255 | 2.30831961580863 |
| Financial & real estate (K-L) | 14.4166466614081 | 7.70384208844424 | 3.13151904055587 |
| Professional & technical (M) | 30.8377669120756 | 12.9049046548422 | 3.71192113507006 |
| Admin & support service (N) | 28.616223894581 | 18.0703933747412 | 6.24168653532438 |
| Public admin & defence (O) | 0.489504493620073 | 0.305000463291843 | 0.10547966879384 |
| Education (P) | 7.77896571883015 | 6.98616521424842 | 4.69132496940025 |
| Health & social (Q) | 11.1142939918424 | 7.77574518454751 | 4.87167009496741 |
| Arts & entertainment (R-S) | 55.8935134893826 | 49.9560936668441 | 26.0108102710058 |
| All sectors | 29.9179800155568 | 20.0322611337421 | 8.8055734606465 |
EWSS payments accounted for 0.6% of total earnings across all employments in 2022. Again, this varied across economic sectors. The sectors where EWSS payments represented the highest proportion of earnings were Accommodation & Food Services (7.5%), Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services (2.6%) and Transportation & Storage (1.3%).
WSS payments accounted for a lower percentage of total earnings across all economic sectors in 2022 when compared with the corresponding percentages in 2020 and 2021. However, it must be noted that the WSS payments were in existence for a considerably shorter period (January-May) in 2022.
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Industry (B-E) | 3.6 | 2.2 | 0.131020781691751 |
| Construction (F) | 8.5 | 7.5 | 0.430563560215533 |
| Wholesale & retail (G) | 7.1 | 4.8 | 0.362623854203537 |
| Transportation & storage (H) | 9.3 | 10.4 | 1.27343822267656 |
| Accommodation & food (I) | 31.8 | 47.6 | 7.53182016018088 |
| Information & communication (J) | 1.5 | 0.9 | 0.0784557487181816 |
| Financial & real estate (K-L) | 1.5 | 1.2 | 0.131843544527295 |
| Professional & technical (M) | 4.4 | 2.5 | 0.207496280043139 |
| Admin & support service (N) | 5.9 | 5.4 | 0.508427183189792 |
| Public admin & defence (O) | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.00528311934371251 |
| Education (P) | 1.3 | 1.9 | 0.283056951579007 |
| Health & social (Q) | 2 | 2.4 | 0.337536946931158 |
| Arts & entertainment (R-S) | 14.6 | 20.2 | 2.64431400757421 |
| All sectors | 4.3 | 4.4 | 0.569698869237999 |
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