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.
The seasonally adjusted employee index increased by 6.0% in the 12 months to August 2022. The female employee index increased by 6.2%, while the male index increased by 5.7% for the same period.
All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index. The highest increases were in those aged 15–19 years (+13.5%) and 65 years and over (+12.1%).
The only age group to see a monthly increase in the employee index was in those aged 65 years and over (+0.7%).
The Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector saw an annual increase of 17.8% in August 2022. When compared with pre-pandemic levels in August 2019, the sector increased by 3.9%.
Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw increases in their indices of 16.9% and 4.5% respectively in August 2022 when compared with August 2021.
The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data release is a very short time series (three and a half years of monthly data) and is thus at the lower limit of acceptable length for the seasonal adjustment process. In the short term, care should be taken in interpreting the seasonally adjusted output. Users should be aware that there is increased uncertainty around the seasonally adjusted figures during the COVID-19 period due to the volatility of the data. Non-seasonally adjusted data are available on PxStat.
The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data is published as a 'Frontier' release, therefore the methodology and data are subject to revision. As more data become available, due to later transmissions from employers, the series may change from month to month. As this particularly affects the most recent months, figures should be considered provisional for the two most recent months for the non-seasonally adjusted data.
| Seasonally Adjusted Employee Index | |||
| Seasonally Adjusted Employee Index Base Year: 2019=100 | Monthly % change | Annual % change | |
| August 2021 | 100.7 | 0.3 | 5.7 |
| July 2022 | 108.0 | -1.0 | 7.5 |
| August 2022 | 106.8 | -1.1 | 6.0 |
The seasonally adjusted index increased by 7.2% in August 2022 when compared with August 2019. March 2021 was the last month to show a negative annual change (-10.9%) for the employee index when compared to the previous year.
The female and male indices have increased on an annual basis by 6.2% and 5.7% respectively. Both females (-1.4%) and males (-0.7%) decreased in August 2022 when compared with July 2022.
The age groups that saw the largest monthly decrease seasonally adjusted employee index were the 20-24-year group (-3.3%) and the 15-19-year group (-3.1%). The 65 years and over age group was the only group to show a monthly increase in August 2022 (+0.7%), with the 45-54 and 55-59 age groups showing no change.
The Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector had the largest decrease in the seasonally adjusted monthly index (-5.9%). All other NACE sectors saw monthly decreases apart from Industry; Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities; and Human Health & Social Work Activities, where there was no change month on month.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (12 October 2022) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data August 2022.
Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician, said:
“Today’s release details employee estimates for August 2022 using administrative data. The series provides estimates of employees (indexed and volumes) by Age, Sex and NACE sector. All data presented are seasonally adjusted. Non-seasonally adjusted data are available on PxStat. For further information see the Background Notes.
All NACE economic sectors increased on an annual basis apart from Agriculture, Forestry, & Fishing which decreased by 0.8%. The largest increase (+17.8%) was seen in the Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector. This was followed by the Administrative and Support Service Activities sector at 9.5%. The Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities sector saw an annual increase of 7.0% to August 2022. However, this sector decreased by 4.5% over the three years from August 2019 to August 2022.
The age group 25-34 years recorded the smallest increase in the employee index when comparing August 2019 with August 2022 at 1.2%.
The highest increases in this three-year period were noted in the following age groups: 32.0% for 15-19 years, 19.6% for 65 years and over, and 14.5% for 60-64 years.”