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This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
Job churn in Quarter 4 2024 was 377,572, down 22,842 (5.7%) from Q4 2023. The associated job churn rate for Q4 2024 was 13.1%, down 1.3 percentage points from the 14.4% recorded a year earlier.
The total number of jobs created in Q4 2024 was 124,087, an increase of 12,682 (11.4%) when compared with Q4 2023.
There were 152,913 job destructions in Q4 2024, which was 2,126 (1.4%) more than the number recorded 12 months earlier.
The 312,873 hirings recorded in Q4 2024 were 1,261 (0.4%) greater than the 311,612 observed in Q4 2023.
In Q4 2024 a total of 341,699 job separations were recorded, down 9,295 (2.6%) from the 350,994 observed in Q4 2023.
There were 177,487 separations from primary employments in Q4 2024. Of these, 128,698 (72.5%) people were no longer on the Revenue PAYE Modernisation (PMOD) system, 32,680 (18.4%) were employed but in a different economic sector, and 16,109 (9.1%) remained employed in the same economic sector but with a different organisation or company.
There were 2,517,809 people who stayed in their current employment, or stayers, in Q4 2024, up 79,565 (3.3%) from the 2,438,244 observed in Q4 2023.
Labour Market Churn is part of the CSO's Frontier Series of releases. It uses Revenue PMOD data to provide insights on employee turnover within the labour. In addition, while the release does not capture the reasons behind employee job moves, it does detail whether job leavers remained employed in the same economic sector, a different sector, or have left PMOD employment.
The series covers the time period from Q2 2020 to the end of the current quarter, Q4 2024.
Job churn: Is a measure of employee turnover providing insight into the number of employees who changed job and stayed in the same job. It is a measure of employee turnover that captures employee job matches over and above the minimum that would be required to accommodate total labour market growth or decline.
Job churn rate: Measures job churn relative to total employment.
Stayers: People who remain in the same job are referred to as stayers; those who take up a new employment are referred to as hirings; and those who leave an employment are called separations.
Total employments: A combination of stayers and hirings.
Job creations: If an enterprise has more hirings than separations in a quarter, then it is said to have had job creations, with the net difference between hirings and separations being the number of job creations. Example:
Job destructions: Conversely, if an enterprise has more separations than hirings in a quarter, then it is said to have had job destructions, with the net difference between separations and hirings being the number of job destructions. Example:
Job creations and job destructions are a net figure based on hirings and separations at enterprise level. In each time period, an enterprise experiences either job creations, no change, or job destructions.
Primary employment: This refers to the main job of employees who have more than one employment. The Background Notes has more information.
| Table 1.1 Job Creation, Destruction, Churn, and Churn Rate | |||||
| Job Creation | Job Destruction | Job Churn | Job Churn Rate | ||
| Number | % | ||||
| Q4 2023 | 111,405 | 150,787 | 400,414 | 14.4 | |
| Q3 2024 | 142,528 | 119,706 | 365,750 | 12.8 | |
| Q4 2024 | 124,087 | 152,913 | 377,572 | 13.1 | |
| Quarterly Change (pp1) | -18,441 | 33,207 | 11,822 | 0.3 | |
| Annual Change (pp) | 12,682 | 2,126 | -22,842 | -1.3 | |
| Source: CSO Labour Market Churn | |||||
| 1pp refers to percentage point change | |||||
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (27 March 2025) issued Labour Market Churn results for Q4 2024.
Labour Market Churn is part of the CSO's Frontier Series of releases, which means care must be taken when interpreting these results as methodologies may change and data sources may be incomplete.
This release uses Revenue PMOD data to provide insights on employee turnover within the labour market. The release contains figures on employees who stay in their current job, those who leave an employment, and those who take up new jobs. It also provides breakdowns of the employee turnover figures by economic sector and firm size. For more information and definitions of the terminology used in the release, please see the Editor's Note below.
Commenting on today’s release, Conor Delves, Statistician in the Labour Market Analysis Section, said: “The job churn figure for Q4 2024 was 377,572, which was a decrease of 22,842 from Q4 2023. The job churn rate, that is the job churn figure relative to total employment, for Q4 2024 was 13.1%, down 1.3 percentage points from the 14.4% recorded in Q4 2023.
There were 124,087 job creations in Q4 2024 and 152,913 job destructions in the same period.
In Q4 2024, 11.1% of employees were no longer in an employment that they held in the previous quarter.
The largest year-on-year increase in job creations in Q4 2024 were seen in Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities, where creations were up 86.9% to 12,567 and Public Administration and Defence; Compulsory Social Security, where creations rose 59.1% to 5,486.
In Q4 2024, the highest job churn rate was recorded in the Administrative & Support Service sector (26.0%), while the lowest rate (7.8%) was recorded in the Information & Communication sector.
The firm size group that saw the highest job churn rate in Q4 2024 was those employing 50-249 people (16.0%). The lowest job churn rate in the quarter was in firms with between one and nine employees (6.3%)."