Cost of living impacts such as higher energy costs for business and inputs inflation had no impact on payroll employment in the Irish economy in 2022, according to Central Statistics Office data.

The agency’s monthly estimate of payroll employees increased by 5.4% in the 12 months to December 2022, and ended the year well above the employment level in February 2020 when the Covid pandemic struck.

Despite talk of higher utility costs impacting the hospitality sector, in the year to December the Accommodation & Food Service Activities sector saw the largest increase in employees at 11.1%.

CSO statistician John Mullane commented: “When looking at Q4 2022, all age groups showed an increase in the employee index month-on-month apart from those aged 15-19 years in October 2022 (-2.4%). All age groups saw annual increases in the employee index.”

In December, the employee index showed the biggest monthly rise in the age category 65 and over (+0.6%), while the 35-44 age group had the smallest increase (+0.2%).

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The CSO series draws on Revenue data. Persons are counted if they are estimated to have worked for greater than zero pay during the reference month.

Employers are required to report their employee’s pay and deductions in real-time to Revenue each time they operate payroll. Information is provided to Revenue at individual payslip level and pseudonymised data are used by the CSO.

The payroll employee count excludes self-employed people who do not pay themselves under the PAYE system.

The CSO’s tally is that payroll employees totalled 2,372,000 in December 2022, up from 2,250,000 in December 2021.

The CSO's latest Labour Force Survey data estimates 68,500 jobs created in the year to Q4 2022. Total employment is estimated at 2.57 million, an increase of c.2.7% over Q4 2021.