Average weekly earnings stood at €880.37 in the first quarter of the year, an annual increase of 2.3% from €860.19 in the first quarter of 2021, new CSO figures show.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has issued Earnings and Labour Costs results in respect of Preliminary estimates for Q1 2022 and Final estimates for Q4 2021.
The latest report shows that hourly earnings increased on an annual basis by 1.9% to €27.33.
CSO’s figure shows that the job vacancy rate at the end of the first quarter of 2022 was 1.6%, up from 1.4% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021 and up from 1% at the end of the same time last year.
Commenting on the release, Louise Egan, Statistician, noted the impact of COVID-19 on the results: “When considering the change in earnings, it should be noted that there may be a compositional effect due to the significant changes in employment in certain sectors. The composition of the labour market in Q1 2022 may be very different to previous quarters. The accompanying Labour Market Bulletin Insight Series gives greater detail on compositional changes in employment in certain sectors.
In the accommodation & food services sector, Employee Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) payments represented 35.9% of total earnings, while in the arts and entertainment sector it was 11.8%.
65.5% of employment in the accommodation and food services sector was supported by the EWSS in the first quarter of 2022.
A separate Labour Market Bulletin from the CSO shows that for employments that were active in both the final quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, average weekly earnings increased by 5.9%.
Changes by sectors ranged from an increase of 22.7% in the financial sector to a decrease of 3.4% in the construction sector, the CSO said.