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Background Notes

Statistics in this publication are based on population estimates which have not been updated following Census 2022. See LFS Background Notes.

Just over 36% of those in employment said that they spent all or most of their time working on digital devices

CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Introduction

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a continuous household survey conducted by the CSO and is the official source of statistics on employment and unemployment in Ireland.

Much of the LFS survey is governed by European Union (EU) Regulations (see 2019/1700 on Social Surveys (IESS) and 2019/2240 on LFS implementation) which prescribe the required methods, precision and core variables to be collected in the EU LFS across all EU member states.

In addition the EU LFS implements an eight year cycle of modules on an ad hoc subject across all EU member states. The purpose of the additional module is to provide users with statistics on a specific topic concerning the labour market. The subject of the 2022 module was Job Skills. The Job Skills module will be repeated in 2030.

Core LFS Background Notes

Details on the sample design and data collection methods for Ireland’s core LFS are provided in the LFS background notes.

Subsample for Job Skills module

The annual EU LFS module is asked to a subsample of LFS respondents across all four quarters in the reference year. Specifically, participants in Wave 3 are asked to complete the module if they are aged between 15 and 74 and are either currently employed or are currently not working but were employed in the last 24 months.

Job Skills 2022 questionnaire

Explanatory notes for the variables collected in the 2022 Job Skills module are available on the Eurostat website (PDF 539KB).

The CSO instrument is available in the LFS Questionnaire (PDF 5,919KB).

Job skills variables

The 8 core skills asked in the Job Skills question are as follows:

  • Time spent on working on digital devices in main or last job
  • Time spent on reading work-related manuals and technical documents in main or last job
  • Time spent on doing relatively complex calculations in main or last job
  • Time spent on doing hard physical work in main or last job
  • Time spent on tasks involving finger dexterity in main or last job
  • Time spent on interacting with people from the same enterprise or organisation in main or last job
  • Time spent on interacting with people from outside the enterprise or organisation in main or last job
  • Time spent on advising, training or teaching other people in main or last job

There are also three additional skills which are derived variables based on the skills above:

  • COGNITIVE – based on a combination of reading work-related manuals and technical documents and doing relatively complex calculations
  • MANUAL – based on a combination of doing hard physical work and tasks involving finger dexterity
  • SOCIAL – based on a combination of interacting with people from the same enterprise or organisation or outside the enterprise or organisation

Each of these variables has the following values:

  • All or most of the working time
  • Half of the working time or slightly more
  • Some of the working time
  • Little of the working time
  • None of the working time

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