The waiting period for International Protection Applicants to enter the labour market was reduced from nine months to six months in 2021. This should be taken into consideration when analysing the following table which provides a breakdown of when and what proportion of the International Protection Applicants (IPA) group who were or are beneficiaries of the Daily Expense Allowance between 2021-2024 came into employment. As the first year of employment is 2022, the International Protection start date in terms of years will focus on 2021 for this group. Of all the IPA group from 2021, there were 57.5% in employment in 2022, the proportion of this group with a start date in 2022 and employment in 2023 was 66.1% and the proportion with a start date in 2023 and employment in 2024 was 59.0%. There are a lesser number of the IPA group who have employment in the same year as their start date: 24.6% in 2022, 15.8% in 2023 and 14.8% in 2024. As mentioned above, there is a 6-month time lag to work which explains the lower number entering employment in the same year (See Table 2.1).
Looking at Economic Sector of employment in 2024, for the IPA group, over 6 in 10 employments (63.9%) were in 3 sectors: Administrative & Support Services (36.2%), Accommodation & Food Services (16.3%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (11.4%). Sectors with a low proportion of IPA group employments in 2024 were the Information & Communication sector with 0.5% of all employments of this IPA group and Financial, Insurance & Real Estate which had 1.8%.
The IPA group tend to rely on these 3 sectors for employment as this trend can be seen in previous years 2022 and 2023 where Administrative & Support Services, Accommodation & Food Services, and Wholesale & Retail Trade made up 67.5% and 64.5% of all employments (See Table 2.2).
Examining the gender breakdown of this group's employments across the Economic Sectors shows that the majority of employments are male, accounting for 74.1% of employments in 2024, this is down 1.3 percentage points since 2023 and down 0.5 percentage points since 2022. Males have a high representation in Construction (94.7%) and Industry (89.6%) whereas females in comparison have a high representation in Public Administration, Education & Health (68.8%) and Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities (39.5%) (See Figure 2.1 and Table 2.3).
Median weekly earnings for the IPA group in 2024 were €544.09 and mean weekly earnings were €553.91. With the exception of the Information & Communication sector there is little difference between the mean and median weekly earnings which suggests that earnings for the IPA group are evenly distributed. In 2024, median weekly earnings for the top 3 sectors of employment were €577.49 in Administrative & Support Services, €445.24 in Accommodation & Food Services and €516.44 in Wholesale & Retail Trade. Median weekly earnings were highest in the Construction sector at €659.72 followed by Information & Communication where median weekly earnings were €599.48. Median weekly earnings were lowest in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector at €424.91 (See Figure 2.2).
For the IPA group, median weekly earnings had increased 8.3% since 2023 and 15.5% since 2022. All sectors excluding the Information & Communication sector had an increase in median weekly earnings. The highest increase in median weekly earnings from 2023 was Industry which rose by 10.8%, followed by Financial, Entertainment and Real Estate which increased by 10.8%. The Information & Communication sector experienced a decrease in median weekly earnings of -5.5% from 2023.
In 2024, males’ median weekly earnings were €570.83, and females were €471.20. Focusing on the top 3 sectors of employment again, Median weekly earnings for males and females in Administrative & Support Services were €607.14 and €466.49, in Accommodation & Food Services males earned €463.96 and females earned €403.82 while in Wholesale & Retail Trade males’ earnings were €536.58 and female earnings were €435.82 (See Table 2.4a).
Comparing the IPA group to the general population in 2024, the general population have higher median weekly earnings earning €711.56 compared to €544.09. This is true across all economic sectors with the exception of the Accommodation & Food Services sector where the IPA group had median weekly earnings of €445.24 compared to €391.15 for the general population. The widest gaps in median weekly earnings were in Information & Communication (-€826.54) and Financial, Insurance & Real Estate (-€453.72). The narrowest gap in median weekly earnings was in Wholesale & Retail Trade (-€16.01) (See Figure 2.3 and Table 2.4a).
Caution should be taken when interpreting some of the changes year on year. Due to low numbers of employment in some sectors, a small increase in employment can have a big influence on the compositional make-up of that sector annually. An example is the Information & Communication sector where employments are low leading to increased volatility in earnings from changes in employment.
Breakdowns by age offers additional insight into the compositional makeup of the IPA group in employment. The 30–39 years age group had the largest share of employments with 35.9% in 2024, followed by the 25-29 years age group with 21.9% and the 40-49 years age group accounted for 19.5%. Together, these age groups 25-49 years made up 77.3% of all the IPA group employments in 2024. The Age composition has remained the same year on year since 2022 (See Figure 2.4).
Looking at the composition of age and gender of the IPA group in employment in 2024 shows that for both males and females the 30-39 years age group had the highest proportion of employments with 36.5% and 34.3%. However, for females the 40-49 years age group had the next highest proportion of employments with 24.2% whereas for males this was the 25-29 years age group with 23.0% of employments. For both males and females, the 50 years and older age group had the lowest proportion of employments at 5.5% and 7.8% followed by the 15-24 years age group with 17.1% and 15.1% of employment in 2024 (See Figure 2.5 and Table 2.5).
Older age groups, 40 years and older, tended to work more in sectors such as Public Administration, Education & Health (38.4%) and Financial, Insurance & Real Estate (31.5%). Whereas younger age groups, aged 15-24 years, had a higher proportion of employment in Accommodation & Food services (20.2%) and Wholesale & Retail Trade (19.2%) (See Figure 2.6).
Finally, looking at median weekly earnings of the IPA group by age and gender we can see that age does have an effect on earnings but there is not a huge difference between the highest earning age group 30-39 years (€556.46) and the lowest earning age group 15-24 years (€506.53) with only a €49.93 difference between the two groups in 2024.
Across all age groups of the IPA group males had higher median weekly earnings than females, overall females earned 17.5% less than males in terms of median weekly earnings. For males, the highest median weekly earnings were in the age group 40-49 years earning €595.56 and for females, the highest median weekly earnings were in the age group 50 years and over earnings €490.71. For females, the 40-49 years and over age group had the next highest median weekly earnings of €477.84 and for males it was the 30-39 years age group with €583.82 (See Figure 2.7 and Table 2.6a).
There has been strong growth in median weekly earnings for the IPA group from 2023–2024 in all age groups ranging from 5.8% for the 40-49-years age group, a 7.5% rise for the 30-39 years age group, 9.3% for the 15-24 years age group and an increase of 9.8% for the 25-29 years age group and the 50 years and over age group.
Since 2022 median weekly earnings have increased by 13.7%-16.9% across the age groups. The 40-49 years age group experienced the highest growth since 2022 with 16.9% and the 30-39 years age group had the lowest growth with 13.3% (See Table 2.6a).
Eight countries of nationality were selected for analysis in Figure 2.8, Figure 2.9 and Table 2.8. These were the countries with over 400 people in the earnings data in each year (2022, 2023 and 2024).
Median weekly earnings of the IPA group increased over the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 (See Figure 2.8).
When comparing between countries in 2024 and examining median weekly earnings of the IPA group, Georgia and Zimbabwe had the two highest weekly median earnings with €657.46 and €580.87 respectively. It’s interesting to note that the three weekly median earning values for Georgia are above €600 in each year (See Figure 2.8 and Table 2.7).
The only country with median weekly earnings value below €500 in 2024 was the Syrian Arab Republic with a median of €439.84 (See Figure 2.8 and Table 2.7).
Median weekly earnings can also be compared between the general population and the IPA group. Figure 2.9 shows that three of the eight countries have a smaller weekly median earnings value in the general population when compared with the medians of the IPA group. These countries include Afghanistan (median of €529.54 for DEA and €444.50 for general population), Georgia (median of €657.46 for DEA group and €604.25 for general population) and Somalia (median of €550.01 for DEA group and €548.32 for general population).
Three countries have a substantially higher weekly median earnings value in the general population, these countries include Nigeria (34% larger), South Africa (64% larger) and Zimbabwe (42%).
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