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Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data November 2022

The Monthly Employee Index increased by 5.6% in the 12 months to November 2022

Online ISSN: 2811-5791
CSO statistical publication, , 11am
A CSO Frontier Series Output

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.

Key Findings

  • The seasonally adjusted employee index increased by 5.6% in the 12 months to November 2022. The female employee index rose by 6.1%, while the male index grew by 5.1% for the same period.

  • All age groups saw annual growth in the employee index. The highest increases were in those aged 65 years and over (+13.0%) and those aged 60-64 years (+7.9%).

  • Almost all age groups saw a monthly rise in the employee index, with the largest increase in those aged 65 years and over (+2.5%). Only one age group saw a decrease in the monthly indices, those aged 15-19 years (-0.4%).

  • The Financial Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector saw an annual increase of 10.6% in November 2022. When compared with pre-pandemic levels in November 2019, the sector grew by 7.8%. The Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector was up 10.5% in the 12 months to November 2022. When compared with pre-pandemic levels in November 2019, the sector rose by 6.3%.

  • Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw growth in their indices of 9.2% and 1.2% respectively in November 2022 when compared with November 2021.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (12 January 2023) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data November 2022.

Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, said:

“All NACE economic sectors showed increases in the numbers employed on an annual basis. The largest annual increase (+10.6%) was seen in the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector. This was followed by the Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector at 10.5%. The Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities sector saw an annual rise of 2.7% from November 2021 to November 2022. However, this sector decreased by 3.6% over the three years from November 2019 (pre-pandemic) to November 2022 and is the only NACE sector with an index value lower than November 2019.

The age group 35-44 years recorded the smallest growth in the employee index when comparing November 2019 with November 2022 at 4.4%.

The highest increases in this three-year period were noted in the following age groups: 29.4% for 15-19 years, 24.5% for 65 years and over, and 16.9% for 60-64 years.”

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.

Seasonal Adjustment

The Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data release is a very short time series (less than 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.

Headline Table

Number of Employees and Employee Index, Monthly and Annual Changes, Seasonally Adjusted
PeriodNumber of EmployeesEmployee Index (Base year: 2019=100)Monthly % Change Annual % Change
November 20212,242,400104.11.012.0
October 20222,347,300109.00.15.8
November 20222,368,300109.90.95.6

Employee Index Totals, Seasonally Adjusted

The seasonally adjusted index increased by 9.4% in November 2022 when compared with November 2019. March 2021 was the last month to show a negative annual change (-10.8%) for the employee index when compared to the previous year.

Figure 1: Employee Index, Seasonally Adjusted
Table 1 Employee Index and Total Number of Employees, Seasonally Adjusted

Employee Index by Sex, Seasonally Adjusted

The female and male indices increased on an annual basis by 6.1% and 5.1% respectively. Both females (+1.1%) and males (+0.5%) increased in November 2022 when compared with October 2022.

Figure 2: Employee Index classified by Sex, Seasonally Adjusted
Table 2 Employee Index by Sex, Seasonally Adjusted

Table 2a Number of Employees by Sex, Seasonally Adjusted

Age Groups

The only monthly decrease in the seasonally adjusted employee index was in those aged 15-19 years (-0.4%). All other age groups showed a monthly increase in November 2022, when compared with October 2022. The largest monthly increase was in those aged 65 and over (+2.5%).

Figure 3: Employee Index Percentage Change November 2022, Seasonally Adjusted
Table 3 Employee Index by Age Group, Seasonally Adjusted

Table 3a Total Number of Employees by Age Group, Seasonally Adjusted

Economic Sectors

All NACE sectors saw an annual increase in the seasonally adjusted employee index. The largest monthly increase was seen in the Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services Activities sector (+2.7%), followed by the Education sector at (+1.8%). Two sectors, Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing, and Transportation & Storage showed no change from October 2022.

The sectors showing the largest annual increases were in the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector (+10.6%), Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector (+10.5), and Education sector (+8.1%).

Figure 4: Employee Index classified by NACE Rev.2 Economic Sector, Seasonally Adjusted
Table 4 Employee Index classified by NACE Rev.2 Economic Sector, Seasonally Adjusted

Table 4a Total Number of Employees classified by NACE Rev.2 Economic Sector, Seasonally Adjusted