A CSO Frontier Series Output- What is this?
A range of measures were introduced by the Government to provide income support for those whose employment has been affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. The available schemes are being administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) and the Revenue Commissioners. The CSO has worked to identify the detail available, and how the different schemes should be classified for statistical purposes. There may be some overlap between those who are estimated to have benefitted from the COVID-19 income support schemes in certain weeks. These overlaps occur due to the different frequency of the payments, and the possible transition of persons from one scheme to another during a particular week.
The COVID-19 income supports were originally set up as short-term emergency income supports but they have been extended several times and there have been changes made in terms of the eligibility criteria and how they are being administered.
The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is a scheme set up by the Government in response to the loss of income for those whose employment had been affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. The PUP is administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) who provide details of payments made under this scheme to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on a weekly basis. Payments under the PUP scheme commenced during the week ending 22 March 2020.
It should be noted that DSP has been paying arrears to recipients of the PUP, to account for the movement of people in and out of employment. The first arrears payment occurred on 01 December 2020. All arrears payments are processed as the data is received from DSP and the payments are included in the week of the entitlement period, rather than the week of payment. For this reason, the PUP estimates for previous weeks will be subject to revision while the scheme remains open.
The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) was another scheme that was set up by the Government in response to the loss of income for those whose employment was affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. It is administered by the Revenue Commissioners who provided details on payments made under the scheme to the CSO. Refunds were issued to employers registered under the scheme, who in turn paid their employees. Payments under the scheme commenced on the week ending 22 March 2020 and the scheme was closed at the end of August 2020.
While the PUP is a weekly scheme, the availability of TWSS data depends on an employee’s pay frequency which could be weekly, fortnightly, every four weeks or monthly. The methodology to estimate the number of persons being supported by the TWSS each week was modified from the process used previously in Tables LRW09-LRW12 which are now archived and have been replaced by other tables – see COVID-19 Income Supports data on PxStat Section below. These methodology changes have been made to match more closely to the methodology used for the PUP and EWSS. There are differences for the TWSS aggregates between the archived tables and the new tables. The methodologies which have been modified are the employment classifications, Age and “supported by” calculations. The methods used for specific classifications are outlined in the Classifications section below.
The TWSS data in this output reflects the estimated number of persons being supported by the scheme in each week. This estimate is calculated by filling in previous weeks using pay frequency as an indicator. For example; if someone is paid monthly and received a payment in Week 20 of 2020, they would be estimated to be covered by the scheme for weeks 16 to 20.
It should be noted that these statistics represent all claims made under the TWSS while it was operational. Some employers have refunded TWSS subsidies to the State but the CSO don’t have access to that data to take account of any refunds made in the aggregates we publish.
The TWSS was replaced by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) from 01 September 2020 and is currently expected to continue until 30 June 2021. There were a small number of EWSS claims in July and August 2020 in respect of newly hired or seasonally hired employees who were ineligible for the TWSS. EWSS estimates are compiled from returns made to the CSO by the Revenue Commissioners.
The EWSS is an economy-wide enterprise support that focuses primarily on business eligibility. The scheme provides a flat-rate subsidy to qualifying employers based on the numbers of eligible employees on the employer’s payroll and gross pay to employees.
Like the TWSS, the availability of EWSS data depends on an employee’s pay frequency which could be weekly, fortnightly, every four weeks or monthly. Because of these differing pay frequencies, and the time it takes for employers to lodge payslip data with the Revenue Commissioners before it is made available to the CSO for dissemination purposes, there is a lag on the availability of the EWSS estimates in the same way there was last year for the TWSS estimates published by the CSO.
The EWSS data in this output reflect the estimated number of persons being directly supported by the scheme in each week, i.e. their employer is in receipt of an EWSS subsidy in respect of that employee. For non-weekly paid employees, the “supported by” estimate is calculated by filling in previous weeks using pay frequency as an indicator. For example; if someone is paid monthly and received a payment on week 10 of 2021, they would be estimated to be covered by the scheme for weeks 6 to 10.
Users should note that the EWSS estimates will be subject to revision as the CSO receive more up to date data relating to the scheme, with more recent weeks likely to be subject to larger revisions. Individuals are counted in these tables if there is a record of them in receipt of EWSS. This may give rise to a slight over count of individuals receiving EWSS due to deletions and amendments. Users should recognise that some employers may lose eligibility to the scheme and may have to repay subsidies received. The data included in this publication and associated PxStat tables represent all claims made under the EWSS; the CSO don’t have access to data to account for any refunds made by employers to the aggregates we publish.
The CSO has been working with, and will continue to collaborate with, both the DSP and the Revenue Commissioners to meet user needs for availability of detailed aggregates for the recipients of the PUP, the TWSS and the EWSS. Tables providing breakdowns of the numbers benefitting from the PUP, the TWSS and the EWSS for each week since March 2020 by sex, age group, county and nationality grouping are available at the following link: PxStat LRW Tables.
As well as the COVID-19 income support data outlined above, the LRW tables in PxStat also contain the corresponding numbers included on the Live Register for each week.
The following are the tables that are now available on PxStat:
LRW07: New entrants to the PUP, TWSS or EWSS by NACE Economic Sector
LRW08: Persons in receipt of the TWSS and EWSS (by pay frequency)
LRW13: Number of Persons on the Live Register, in receipt of the PUP and supported by the TWSS or EWSS (by detailed age group and sex)
LRW14: Number of Persons on the Live Register, in receipt of the PUP and supported by the TWSS or EWSS (by county, age group and sex)
LRW15: Number of Persons on the Live Register, in receipt of the PUP and supported by the TWSS or EWSS (by nationality, age group and sex)
LRW16: Number of Persons on the Live Register, in receipt of the PUP and supported by the TWSS or EWSS (by NACE economic sector)
LRW17: Cumulative Persons receiving PUP, TWSS or EWSS (by detailed age group and sex)
LRW18: Cumulative Persons receiving PUP, TWSS or EWSS (by NACE economic sector)
Tables LRW13 to LRW15 published on PxStat today also include weekly estimates of the total number of persons on the Live Register (LR), or who are being supported by the PUP, TWSS or EWSS (Estimated Number of Persons on the LR or benefitting from PUP, TWSS or EWSS). Those tables also now include another “Total” that excludes those on Live Register (Estimated Number of Persons benefitting from PUP, TWSS or EWSS) for the period of March 2020 through to March 2021. Both “Totals” remove any overlap or duplication within the relevant schemes for each week as they count each person only once even if they appear on more than one scheme in the reference week.
Some of the previous tables (LRW01-LRW06 and LRW09-LRW12) have been archived and have been replaced by updated tables today. For the Live Register and the PUP, all the data contained in those tables is available in the new tables outlined above. For the TWSS, we are archiving the data from Tables LRW01-LRW06 which contains estimates that are based on pay weeks. These estimates only count monthly, four-weekly and fortnightly paid employees in weeks that they receive a payslip. Thus, these tables were under estimating the number of persons being supported by the TWSS. Table LRW08 still outlines the number of persons who benefitted from either the TWSS or the EWSS in each week based on their pay frequency. Tables LRW09-LRW12 contained estimates of the number of persons being supported by the TWSS in each week and updated estimates are available now in LRW13-LRW16.
The income supports have different methodology for calculating certain classification variables which should be noted when comparing the schemes; this is most relevant for the economic sector classifications.
Age
EWSS/PUP: The age of an individual is calculated at the end of each reference week.
TWSS: Age is determined using the end of the reference week in the final week of the scheme, the week ending 06 September 2020.
County
County is based on the place of residence of the individual for all schemes.
Economic Sector
EWSS/TWSS: NACE sector is chosen by matching a person’s employment to the CSO Business Register. If someone has multiple employments in receipt of the EWSS, the sector is assigned from their primary employment, which contains more “supported by” weeks.
PUP: Persons who were in employment during January to March 2020 have the NACE sector of their primary employment during this period assigned to them using the CSO Business Register. For other individuals in receipt of PUP for whom we do not have a record of employment for in the first three months of 2020, no sector has been assigned now. These individuals may have been self-employed or in employment after March 2020. We are investigating options to increase the coverage of the economic sector variable for PUP recipients.
Calculation of total values for the TWSS and the EWSS
It should be noted that, because age is unknown for some recipients of the TWSS and EWSS, the sum for those aged under 25 years and those aged 25 years and over, for example, may not equal the value for all ages as the “All ages” total will include those whose age is unknown. The same could also be the case for the sex, county, NACE sector or nationality classifications for the different schemes.
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