Paid employment decreased by 0.6% in May 2022 compared with the previous month according to the CSO’s Monthly Employee Index.

Unlike the CSO’s Labour Force Survey, the Monthly Employee Index provides more accurate up-to-date employment data, as it is based on PAYE data provided by Revenue.

PAYE Modernisation has been operational for all employers since the beginning of 2019. Under this system, 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 CSO cautions: “As more data become available, due to later transmissions from employers, the series may change from month to month. As this would particularly affect the most recent month, figures should be considered as provisional for the most recent month. An annual process will be carried out once per year which may lead to revisions for published data.”

For May 2022, the only age group that saw a monthly increase in the employee index was those aged 65 years and over (+0.5%), with the largest decrease occurring in the age group 15-19 years (–2.4%).

In Association with

Employment in Accommodation & Food Services decreased by 0.1% month-on-month. Tourism industries and Cultural & Creative industries saw decreases in their indices of 0.2% and 0.7% respectively in May 2022 when compared with April 2022.

The age group with the smallest increase when comparing May 2019 to May 2022 for the series was 25-34 years at 0.6%.

Statistician John Mullane said the sector showing the largest percentage increase for the series over the past three years period is the technology sector, which includes communications.

However, the data highlights that many sectors are still treading water in terms of employment growth after the pandemic shock and its aftermath.