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 0.4% in the month to December 2022.
On an annual basis the index increased by 5.4% to December 2022. The female employee index rose by 5.7%, while the male index rose by 5.0% for the same period.
The employee index showed the biggest monthly rise in the age category 65 and over (+0.6%), while the 35-44 age group had the smallest increase (+0.2%).
The NACE economic sectors that observed the largest monthly increases in December 2022 were Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+2.0%), followed by Construction (+1.1%).
In the 12 months to December, the Accommodation & Food Service Activities sector saw the largest increase in employees (+11.1%).
Seasonal Adjustment
The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data release is a very short time series (four 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.
Revisions and Rounding
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. All figures for monthly percentage change and annual percentage change are calculated prior to the input data being rounded.
Tourism Industries estimates have been updated due to an omission of a particular NACE class which should have been included in the sector classification. This applies from the October 2022 release.
| Number of Employees and Employee Index, Monthly and Annual Changes, Seasonally Adjusted | ||||
| Period | Number of Employees | Employee Index (Base year: 2019=100) | Monthly % Change | Annual % Change |
| December 2021 | 2,250,500 | 104.5 | 1.2 | 8.5 |
| November 2022 | 2,363,600 | 109.7 | 0.7 | 6.2 |
| December 2022 | 2,372,200 | 110.1 | 0.4 | 5.4 |
The seasonally adjusted index increased by 9.2% in December 2022 when compared with December 2019. March 2021 was the last month to show a negative annual change (-10.7%) for the employee index when compared to the previous year.
The female and male indices increased on an annual basis by 5.7% and 5.0% respectively. The female indices increased (+0.2%) while males remained unchanged (0.0%) in December 2022 when compared with November 2022.
All age groups saw monthly and annual increases in the employee index. The age group with the largest annual increase in employees was 65 years and over (+13.1%). Those aged 35-44 years increased the least of all age groups (3.7%).
Almost all Economic Sectors showed an annual increase in the employee index, except for Services (T, U) which fell by 8.6% when compared with December 2021 (it should be noted that this sector is very small, comprising less than 4,000 persons employed in December 2022).
The sectors showing the largest annual increases were Accommodation & Food Services Activities (+11.1%), Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities (+11.0%), and Information and Communication (+7.4%). Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw increases in their indices of 9.4% and 3.6% respectively in December 2022 when compared with December 2021.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (16 February 2023) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data December 2022.
Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, said:
“Most NACE sectors saw monthly increases in the numbers employed in December 2022. The largest monthly increase was seen in Accommodation & Food Service Activities (+2.0%), while Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities remained unchanged. The largest monthly decrease was seen in the Education sector (-0.9%).
The 65 and over age group recorded the largest monthly rise in the employee index (+0.6%). When looking at the last three months, all age groups show an increase in the employee index month-on-month apart from those aged 15-19 years in October 2022 (-2.4%). All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index.”
Data from this publication supplement those in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) quarterly series, which is the official measure of both employment and unemployment for the State. Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data are of particular relevance to LFS Seasonally Adjusted Estimates and Employment outputs.