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 4.8% in the 12 months to October 2022. The female employee index increased by 5.3%, while the male index increased by 4.4% for the same period.
All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index. The highest increases were in those aged 65 years and over (+10.7%) and those aged 60-64 years (+6.7%).
Most age groups saw a monthly decrease in the employee index, with the largest decrease in those aged 15-19 years old (-4.2%). There were slight increases in the monthly indices for those aged 55-59 years (+0.1%) and 60-64 years (+0.4%) old.
The Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector saw an annual increase of 11.3% in October 2022. When compared with pre-pandemic levels in October 2019, the sector increased by 5.3%.
Data for two additional aggregated sectors are provided: Tourism Industries and Cultural & Creative Industries. These sectors saw increases in their indices of 9.8% and 0.3% respectively in October 2022 when compared with October 2021.
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.
| 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 |
| October 2021 | 2,218,100 | 103.0 | 1.4 | 7.9 |
| September 2022 | 2,335,000 | 108.4 | 0.5 | 6.7 |
| October 2022 | 2,325,200 | 108.0 | -0.4 | 4.8 |
The seasonally adjusted index increased by 8.6% in October 2022 when compared with October 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.
The female and male indices increased on an annual basis by 5.3% and 4.4% respectively. Both females (-0.3%) and males (-0.6%) decreased in October 2022 when compared with September 2022.
The largest monthly decrease in the seasonally adjusted employee index was in those aged 15-19 years (-4.2%). The age groups 55-59 years (+0.1%) and 60-64 years (+0.4%) were the only age groups to show a monthly increase in October 2022, when compared with September 2022.
All NACE sectors, except for the Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing sector (-1.9%), saw an annual increase in the seasonally adjusted employee index. This sector also showed the highest monthly decrease of 2.5% in October, when compared with September 2022. The next largest monthly decrease was seen in the Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services Activities sector (-2.3%). The only monthly increases were seen in the Public Administration & Defence sector (+0.3%), and the Information and Communication sector (+0.1%).
The sectors showing the largest annual increases were in the Accommodation and Food Services Activities sector (+11.3), Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector (9.7%), and the Administrative and Support Services Activities sector (+7.1%).
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (14 December 2022) released Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data October 2022.
Commenting on the release, John Mullane, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, said:
“All NACE economic sectors, except for the Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing sector (-1.9%), showed increases in the numbers employed on an annual basis. This sector also showed the largest monthly decrease (-2.5%). The largest annual increase (+11.3%) was seen in the Accommodation & Food Services Activities sector. This was followed by the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector at 9.7%. The Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities sector saw an annual increase of 2.5% from October 2021 to October 2022. However, this sector decreased by 4.1% over the three years from October 2019 (pre-pandemic) to October 2022 and is the only NACE sector with an index value lower than October 2019.
The age groups 25-34 years and 35-44 years recorded the smallest increases in the employee index when comparing October 2019 with October 2022 at 3.4% and 3.8% respectively.
The highest increases in this three-year period were noted in the following age groups: 30.2% for 15-19 years, 22.2% for 65 years and over, and 15.8% 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.