Monthly Service Inquiry

Data for the Monthly Services Index (MSI) is collected each month from a sample of 2,250 enterprises. Information on the Retail and Motor Trade sectors is taken from the Retail Sales Index sample of approximately 1,600 enterprises. The Monthly Services Value Index (MSI) monitors trends in output at current prices of enterprises in the non-financial traded services sector and covers services provided by businesses both to individual consumers and to other businesses.

October 2021 

In comparing this October with October of last year it should be noted that from early October 2020, the country was under Level 3 COVID-19 restrictions and Level 5 lockdown for the final 10 days of October 2020.

Response Rates

Despite difficult circumstances, many enterprises have continued to supply us with information on a monthly basis and we wish to thank all survey respondents for their ongoing support. The response rate for the October 2021 MSI has returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. The provisional index for each month is subject to revision in the following month as additional information from late respondents is obtained.

Imputation

The Monthly Services index is based on a matched sample of enterprises in consecutive months. Imputation is not normally carried out for smaller enterprises which have not returned data. In each sector several key companies are identified based on their significance to the sector (turnover). If key company data is not received on time for the Provisional results, an estimate is derived for the current month using trends shown by responding enterprises in the same sector and, in certain cases, using auxiliary data sources.

These auxiliary data sources were also used to validate the results for October 2021. The CSO is satisfied that this range of auxiliary information supports the trends shown in the Monthly Services Index for October.

The auxiliary sources used for imputation and validation purposes included:

• Published media and research reports on the services sector
• Government guidelines and announcements on restrictions and essential retail/services under Ireland’s Plan for Living with COVID-19
• Websites of large services enterprises, for information issued by non-responding companies about closure, continuation of trade, online trade, etc
• Data from other CSO outputs covering a range of sectors including transport and aviation

Seasonal Adjustment

The patterns since March 2020 have been an exception to the existing seasonal patterns. Seasonally adjusting the Monthly Services Index will continue to be challenging until the scale and shape of the COVID-19 impact on the time series is better understood. The seasonal adjustment models are reviewed each month and have been changed as appropriate. Users should be aware that further observations, as data becomes available in the months ahead, and revisions to the seasonal adjustment models may result in revisions to the seasonally adjusted series.

Thanking Respondents

The CSO wishes to thank all those enterprises who supplied their turnover data for October and urge them to continue to do so for November 2021 and future months. Even if turnover is nil or very low, such information is still needed to measure the trends in the services sector. The CSO will continue to monitor the range of supplementary information described above to derive the best estimate for services turnover in November. The November Monthly Services Index is planned for publication on 11th January.

CSO publication, 07 December 2021, 11am