National Accounts provide a coherent and detailed picture of a country’s whole economy using international statistical standards. The regional accounts use the same standards to provide a regional picture of a country’s economy that is consistent with the national accounts. For this release, we have brought together the work done by the Central Statistics Office, the Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency and the Office of National Statistics to provide a comparative, regional analysis of the economies of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The economic analysis in the release draws on outputs from a range of sources:
Residential Property Prices Index
Regional and Sub Regional Productivity
Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
Northern Ireland House Price Index
Purchasing price parities (PPPs) are used to convert euro and pound sterling into a common currency called the purchasing power standard (PPS). It acts as a currency converter and as an indicator of price level differences between Ireland and the United Kingdom. PPS is an artificial currency unit and is calculated by dividing the nominal value of a variable by the relevant PPP. One PPS can theoretically buy the same amount of goods and services in every country, enabling fair comparisons of economic volume, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and living standards.
The categories of PPP used in this release are household final consumption expenditure and GDP.
PPPs are calculated by Eurostat and information on their methodology can be found on their website. The specific PPP values used in this release can be found in the Eurostat dataset.
Regional Gross Value Added (GVA) for Ireland is calculated using the income method and its components are given in current prices throughout. The regional GVA for Northern Ireland is calculated by balancing both the income and production approaches, more information can be found in the ONS regional accounts methodology.
Gross Value Added (GVA) and its components are calculated in current prices throughout. GVA is given as follows:
Compensation of employees
plus
Gross mixed income
plus
Gross operating surplus
Gross value added at factor cost
plus
Non-product taxes
minus
Non-product subsidies
Gross value added in basic prices
plus
Product taxes
minus
Product subsidies
Gross domestic product
plus
Factor income received from abroad
minus
Factor income sent abroad
Gross national product
plus
Subsidies received from abroad
minus
Subsidies sent abroad
Gross national income
minus
Depreciation on intellectual property
minus
Depreciation on leased aircrafts
minus
Net factor income on redomiciled PLCs.
Disposable household income in this release is given as a gross figure. This approach differs from the disposable household income given in the County Incomes and GVA release which reports disposable household income as a net figure. The difference between net and gross disposable household income is depreciation.
For this release the gross figure was used in order to compare directly with the regional gross disposable household income provided by the ONS for Northern Ireland.
Gross disposable household income is calculated as follows:
Household Primary Income is defined for National Income purposes as follows:
Compensation of employees (i.e. Wages and Salaries, Benefits in kind, Employers’ social insurance contributions)
plus
Gross mixed income
plus
Imputed rent of owner-occupied dwellings
plus
Net interest and dividends
The last component is a net item, which implies that interest payments by households are deducted in deriving primary income.
Total income is defined as:
Primary income from above
plus
Social benefits
plus
Other current transfers
Disposable income is defined as follows:
Total income
minus
Current taxes on income (e.g. Income taxes, other current taxes)
minus
Social insurance contributions (e.g. Employers, employees’, self-employed, etc.)
All definitions and standards are consistent with the Productivity in Ireland release.
Labour productivity is a measure of economic output relative to labour input, it is given as the GVA in chain-linked volumes (chain-linked to 2022) over the total hours worked in the economy.
Hourly compensation measures the cost of employing workers relative to labour input and is defined as the compensation of employees over total employee hours worked.
Unit Labour Cost (ULC) is the ratio of hourly compensation to labour productivity. It is used as a measure for competitiveness whereby if the economy’s ULC increases then competitiveness decreases, for example, the cost of labour may rise while output remains the same or falls.
Log growth rates: The growth rates for labour productivity, hourly compensation and ULC are log growth rates. A log growth rate is a logarithmic transformation of an ordinary growth rate. As many of the indices used in productivity analysis are related multiplicatively, using a log transformation allows for the relationships between these variables to be shown additively.
The formulae, as well as, more detailed information on all the concepts and definitions mentioned above can be found in the Productivity in Ireland release.
The Dublin Belfast economic corridor is the name given to the geographical area connecting the capital cities of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In Ireland the local authorities in the region are Dublin City, South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal, Louth and Meath. In Northern Ireland, the local government districts in the corridor are Newry, Mourne & Down, Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon, Lisburn & Castlereagh and Belfast.
Ireland: County, NUTS 3 & NUTS 2.
Northern Ireland: Local Government Districts.
This release groups businesses by activity (also referred to as industry) using the EU’s Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) Rev. 2 grouping.
The classification categories used educational qualifications are the same as those used in Ireland and Northern Ireland - Joint Census Publication 2021 - 2022. The categories are described in Table 6.1.
| Classification groups | Ireland | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|
| Basic qualification | No formal education/ training, Primary education NFQ Levels 1 or 2, Lower Secondary NFQ Level 3 Junior/Inter/Group Certificate | No qualifications/Level 1: 1 to 4 GCSEs, O levels, CSEs (any grades); 1 AS Level; NVQ level 1; or equivalent |
| Intermediate and advanced qualification | Upper Secondary NFQ Levels 4 or 5 Leaving Certificate, Technical or Vocational NFQ Levels 4 or 5 Advanced Certificate/Completed Apprenticeship NFQ Level 6, Higher Certificate NFQ level 6 |
Level 2: 5 or more GCSEs (A*-C or 9-4), O levels (passes) CSEs (grade 1); 1 A level, 2-3 AS Levels; NVQ level 2, BTEC General, City and Guilds Craft; or equivalent Level 3: 2 or more A Levels, 4 or more AS Levels; NVQ Level 3, BTEC National, OND, ONC, City and Guilds Advanced Craft; or equivalent |
| Higher and professional qualification | Ordinary Bachelor NFQ level 7 up to Doctorate NFQ level 10 | Level 4 and above: Degree (BA, BSc), foundation degree, NVQ Level 4 and above, HND, HNC, professional qualifications (teaching or nursing, for example); or equivalent |
| Other qualification | Other: Other qualifications, equivalent unknown; Apprenticeship | |
| Qualification not stated | Not Stated |
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