Employment in Irish economy hits new 2.6m high despite global headwinds

The number of people at work in the State hit another record high in the second quarter of 2023 despite the deteriorating economic outlook, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The agency’s latest Labour Force Survey showed the number of people officially classified as being in employment rose to an all-time high of 2.64 million between April and June.

This was an increase of 88,400 or 3.5 per cent on the same period last year.

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One of the main contributory factors was increased female employment and increased female participation in the labour force.

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The employment rate for women was 70.5 per cent, the highest level since the series began in 1998. The participation rate for women was 61 per cent.

The participation rate is a measure of the economy’s active workforce, in other words those working and those seeking work.

The Republic has traditionally lagged peer countries in terms of the proportion of women working but during the pandemic more women took on roles in the labour market, a trend linked to the increased incidence of remote working.

The CSO figures show that despite a sequence of high-profile tech job losses here, employment in the sector rose on an annual basis by 8,500 to 173,400.

Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said the figures highlighted the “underlying resilience” of the tech sector here but noted the situation was “fluid”.

The Irish economy continues to perform strongly in the face of domestic and international headwinds. The sector that saw the largest year-on-year growth in employment in the latest report was the public administration and defence; compulsory social security sector, which increased by 14,200 or 11.2 per cent. In contrast, employment in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector fell by 6,600 or 6.3 per cent.

There were 121,200 classified as unemployed in the second quarter, which gave rise to a headline unemployment rate of 4.4 per cent, down from 4.5 per cent in the same quarter of 2022.

The estimated total number of hours worked per week in the second quarter increased by 1.1 million hours or 1.3 per cent on the second quarter of 2022 to 84.1 million hours.