A CSO Frontier Series Output- What is this?
Figure 5.1 below demonstrates how each of the individual income support schemes, i.e. the PUP, the TWSS and the EWSS combine to create the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS recipients (excluding duplicates). The number of PUP recipients is higher than the number on either of the Wage Subsidy Schemes (WSS: TWSS or EWSS) up until the end of June (end of first lockdown). After that, the numbers on the WSS each week were higher than the PUP until towards the end of October 2020 (start of the second lockdown). For the duration of the second lockdown (middle of October to the end of November 2020) the numbers on PUP were much higher than the WSS. The PUP numbers fell below the WSS briefly in December 2020 before rising above it again during the third lockdown.
The series of the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS recipients (excluding duplicates) follows a similar pattern to the PUP with three main peaks that coincide with the three lockdown periods.
The total weekly number of recipients of the PUP, TWSS or EWSS (excluding duplicates) peaked during the week ending 03 May 2020 at 1,011,080; this is the currently the only week to have more the one million persons being supported by the different COVID-19 income support schemes. The latest data available is for the week ending 28 March 2021 when the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS (excluding duplicates) stood at 726,891 with 55.3% males and 19.6% aged under 25 years and 47.0% aged 25-44 years.
Figure 5.2 below presents the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS recipients (excluding duplicates) from the week ending 22 March 2020 through to the week ending 28 March 2021. The total number of male and female recipients on all of the schemes are quite similar for the first couple of weeks but the number of male recipients is higher than the corresponding weekly total for females from the week ending 05 April 2020 onwards. Larger differences occur during the weeks that coincide with the first and third lockdowns reflecting the relative contribution of the increased male PUP numbers at those times to the overall totals.
Figure 5.3 below presents the cumulative number of the Total PUP, TWSS and EWSS recipients (excluding duplicates) by sex from the week ending 22 March 2020 through to the week ending 28 March 2021.
The total number of persons who were supported in at least one week since March 2020 by the PUP, TWSS or the EWSS stood at 1,320,837 by the week ending 28 March 2021. Of these, 57.1% were male and 42.9% were female while 18.5% were aged under 25 years and 47.9% were aged 25-44 years.
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