Labour force figures paint an uneven picture

Behind the very bullish Labour Force Survey figures last week was some more intriguing detail.

Overall, the CSO data said, a record 2.57 million people were employed across multiple sectors in the State. That was up 2.7 per cent on the previous year and more than 200,000 higher than total employment before the pandemic in 2019.

But the picture was not uniform.

First the good news: the unemployment rate for young people – those aged 15-24 – came in at its lowest level in 15 years, dating all the way back to the end of 2007 before the Celtic Tiger bubble burst. At 9.1 per cent, it is still considerably higher than the average for the workforce as a whole – 4.2 per cent – and the figure for the 3.5 per cent for workers aged 25 and over but, encouragingly and for only the second time in those 15 years, it was in single figures.

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[ Employment in Irish economy surges to new high of 2.57m ]

And, at 1.3 per cent, the long-term unemployment rate, which is defined as people out of work for over a year, was at its lowest since 2001 and just a fraction of the 9.3 per cent it hit back at its post-financial crash nadir in 2011.

On the downside, one age group actually saw a rise in unemployment year on year – those aged 25-34 who may have been harder hit than others by the tech sector lay-offs at the end of last year. The rate among this cohort was up to 4.8 per cent from 4.6.

Interestingly, although the labour force grew, the figures fell both for those over the age of 65 and those under the age of 24, albeit only slightly.

Across the economy, the 80.6 million hours worked in the week was a record and the figures rose across all categories but the damage inflicted by the pandemic is still evident in some of the numbers. In the accommodation and food service activities sector closely aligned with the tourism industry, the 4.5 million hours worked was up almost 10 per cent on the same time last year, and not far off double the 2.4 million clocked towards the end of 2020 at the height of the pandemic lockdowns.

But it was still more than half a million hours shy of the 5.1 million recorded by the sector in the last three months of 2019 before Covid hit.