Average hourly earnings have grown by 24.7% over the past five years to Q4 2024, the latest data from the Central Statistics Office shows.

The figures were included in a CSO report COVID-19 – Our Lives Five Years On: Impact on Employment, Earnings, and Air Travel which is part of a series of reports examining the impact of the pandemic on Irish society.

On wages the data shows average hourly total labour costs have also risen across all sectors over that time and are now 26% above their pre-pandemic Q4 2019 level.

“The smallest five-year increase in average hourly earnings was in the Transportation & Storage sector (+8.5%), followed by Education (+17.8%),” CSO statistician Louise Egan said. 

“The largest five-year increase was in the Information & Communication sector (+35.3%), followed by Administrative & Support Services (+26.5%).”

The CSO has been tracking the lasting impact of covid, looking at both earnings and employment as well as air travel which was hugely impacted by worldwide travel restrictions.

Employment, initially took a steep downturn in 2020 but has since surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

At the start of 2020, the total number of people in work in Ireland was 2.4 million.

However, when lockdowns forced business to close, this fell to a low point of 2.2 million in the second quarter of 2020.

Youth employment (15–24-year-olds) had the sharpest decline, down over 25% between Q4 2019 and Q2 2020. Employment recovered to pre-pandemic levels for all age groups by Q3 2021.

But it didn't take long to recover as by the second quarter of 2021, employment numbers began to exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Employment recovered to pre-pandemic levels for all age groups by Q3 2021.

Ultimately, by the end of 2024, 2.8 million were in employment -the highest number since the series began in 1998.

Over the course of the pandemic, almost 1.5 million people received COVID-19 income supports. Over one million people received income support in April 2020, the highest number in any month.

The introduction of the Government’s Wage Subsidy Scheme in 2020 had the biggest impact on the Accommodation & Food Services sector with total labour costs falling by 51.2% in the year to Q4 2020.

It was Q1 2022 before these costs returned to pre-pandemic levels.

On air travel the first significant impact on air passenger numbers occurred in March 2020 when 58% fewer passengers travelled through the five main airports in Ireland (Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock, Kerry).

In April 2020, just over 25,000 passengers passed through the five main airports, which was 99.2% lower than the 3.3 million passengers in April 2019.

The CSO's statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division, Colin Hanley, said: “The effects of the pandemic on employment numbers were different depending on what sector you worked in.

"The largest fall in employment occurred in the Accommodation & Food Services sector, where employment fell 38.0% between Q4 2019 and Q2 2020 or by 68,700 fewer people.

"The next largest decrease was in Administrative & Support Services (-22.3%) over the same period, or 25,000 fewer people."