COVID-19 began to impact the labour market in Ireland towards the end of Q1 2020, new CSO figures show.

Though employment was up 20.6% or 402,800 to 2,353,500 between Q1 2014 and Q1 2020, this dipped at the end  March to 2,070,371.

Full-time employment increased by 384,900 between Q1 2014 and Q1 2020.

The self-employed worked an average of 44.4 hours per week in Q1 2020, while the corresponding number for employees was 35.1 hours.

The share for those working ‘usually’ at home was 8.8%, in Q1 2020.

Impact

Commenting on the report, statistician Jim Dalton said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on the Irish labour market and that impact started towards the end of Quarter 1, 2020”.

The unadjusted number for those aged 15 and over in employment stood at 2,353,500 in Q1 2020.

This fell to 2,070,371 at the end of March.

Just 13.1%, or 62,700 said they could not find a full-time job.

This compares with Q1 2014 when 41.4% or 179,600 gave this reason for being in part-time employment.

The average hours worked for those in full-time and part-time employment was 40.6 and 18.4 per week respectively. 

Agriculture, forestry and fishing had the highest average working time at 47.5 hours per week in Q1 2020 with the education sector having the lowest, at 30.2 hours per week.

Permanent

In Q1 2020, the proportion of employees who reported not being a permanent employee because they could not find a permanent job was 33.0%. 

The corresponding figure in Q1 2014 was 62.2%.

The proportion of those who indicated that they ‘usually’ do paid work at home was 8.8% in Q1 2020.

The share of persons who ‘sometimes’ work at home was 14.3% while it was 76.9% for those persons who ‘never’ work at home.

Finally, the number of persons in full-time employment in Q1 2020 accounted for just over 79.5% of all employment – up from the figure of 76.2% recorded in Q1 2014.