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Pandemic Unemployment Payment

A CSO Frontier Series Output- What is this?

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The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is available to employees and the self-employed who have lost their job on or after 13 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scheme is administered by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) and consists of a weekly payment to recipients that varies based on their earnings when they were working. The scheme was initially set up on a short-term emergency basis but has been extended several times and is currently scheduled to run until 30 June 2021.

It should be noted that DSP has been paying arrears to recipients of the PUP, to take account of the movement of people in and out of employment as the level of restrictions changed. The first arrears payment occurred on 01 December 2020. All PUP arrears paid are included in the week of the entitlement period, rather than the week of payment. Thus, the PUP estimates available today are subject to revision if arrears payments are made by DSP for previous weeks.

Tables LRW07 and LRW13-LRW18 on the CSO PxStat database service currently contain data on PUP recipients for the period of the week ending 22 March 2020 through to the week ending 02 May 2021. The data in these tables will be updated monthly on the publication of the Live Register.

The impact of the different phases of Government COVID-19 restrictions on the number of persons in receipt of the PUP is quite evident from Figure 2.1 below with three peaks representing the three lockdown periods since March 2021. There were 239,580 PUP recipients in the first week of the scheme (week ending 22 March 2020). Substantial increases over the next two weeks followed by smaller weekly increases brought the series to its peak of 605,539 for the week ending 03 May 2020. This is also the only week where there were over 600,000 recipients of the PUP.  The number of PUP recipients decreased over the following 20 weeks when it came to the low point of the series at 210,125 by the week ending 20 September 2020. It remained just under 220,000 over the following weeks before increasing again at the time of the second lockdown in October 2020. It reached a peak in this period of 355,565 during the week ending 22 November 2020 and remained around that level for a few weeks before falling again as restrictions lifted in December. It reached a trough of 282,483 recipients for the week ending 20 December 2020 before rising again to a third peak of 485,805 (week ending 07 February 2021). The number of PUP recipients has been reducing since then with the latest available information on PxStat showing 385,211 PUP recipients for the week ending 02 May 2021. Of those in receipt of PUP for the week ending 02 May 2021, 52.3% were male, 70.6% were Irish, and almost a quarter were in each of the 25-34-year-old (22.0%) and 35-44-year-old (22.1%) age groups.

Figure 2.1 Number of recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) each week

Figure 2.2 below shows the changes in the number of male and female PUP recipients since the series started. The trends for males and females are very similar to the trend for all PUP recipients described above with three peaks representing the three lockdown periods. However, the relative impact of the different lockdowns on the number of males and females in receipt of the PUP varies. The number of male PUP recipients peaked at 345,960 for the week ending 03 May 2020 while the number of female PUP recipients peaked in the same week but at a much lower level (259,579). Both series reduced over the following weeks with the number of male recipients falling to a similar level as females by the end of June. The two series remained at broadly the same levels over the following few months and were at almost identical levels during the second lockdown period. There was a larger decrease in the number of female PUP recipients during the period of easing of restrictions in December 2020. While both series rose again during the third lockdown, again males were more affected than females with both peaking at 269,213 and 216,592 respectively during the week ending 07 February 2021. The number of both male and female PUP recipients has been falling since then with the number of male recipients falling faster to 201,295 by the week ending 02 May 2021 while the number of female recipients was 183,916 in the same week.

Figure 2.2 Number of recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) each week by sex

Figure 2.3 below shows the changes in the number PUP recipients aged under 25 years and 25 years and over since the series started. The volume of PUP recipients aged 25 years and over is, as would be expected, much higher than the volume of those aged under 25 years. The trends for both age groups are very similar to the trend for all PUP recipients described above with three peaks representing the three lockdown periods. However, while the peaks during the first and third lockdown are at relatively similar levels for those aged under 25 years at 122,920 for the week ending 03 May 2020 compared to the 115,513 for the week ending 31 January 2021. The corresponding peaks for those aged 25 years and over were notably different at 482,619 (week ending 03 May 2020) and 371,340 (week ending 07 February 2021).

Figure 2.3 Number of recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) each week by age group

Figure 2.4 below presents the cumulative number of persons who have received at least one payment under the PUP scheme since March 2020. By the end of the third week of the scheme (week ending 05 April 2020) there were close to 600,000 PUP recipients and it had surpassed 600,000 by the end of week four (week ending 12 April 2020). The number has been rising at a lower rate since then with larger weekly growth evident again during the period of the second and third lockdowns. By the week ending 02 May 2021, 863,546 people have received at least one payment since the scheme was established in March 2020, of which 56.1% were male and 47.7% were aged between 25 and 44 years of age.

Figure 2.4 Cumulative number of recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) each week

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