Census finds workforce tops 2million
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has published its final report from Census 2016, which profiles employment, occupations, and industry.
A total of 2,006,641 people were at work in Ireland when the April 2016 census was undertaken, compared with 1,807,360 five years previously. It was an increase of 199,281 or 11%.
Furthermore, 2,304,037 people were registered as being able to work, representing an increase of 71,834, or 3.2%, on the labour force in 2011.
Examining both workforce and employed numbers, the unemployment rate was 12.9% on the night of the census, down from 19% in April 2011.
Female unemployment stood at 12%, while the rate among males was 13.7%. However, since Census 2011, the number of unemployed males fell by over 100,000, or 37.7%, and the number of unemployed females fell by 16%, or 24,050.
The census form asked people to list their job type — they were classified by 238 separate categories.
A total of 90,746 people said they worked in sales or retail or as cashiers and checkout operators. This was the number one occupation category.
Farmers made up the next biggest occupation group, with 69,375 workers, or 3.5% of the workforce, followed by administrative work as the next largest category with 59,392.
Nurses and midwives were next, making up 2.7% of the workforce with 53,910 workers.
From the census forms, the CSO also calculated employment changes in various sectors.
IT activities showed the largest increase, rising by 21,262, almost 56%, to 59,376 in 2016, followed by residential care and social work activities, which showed an increase of 24% from 82,900 in 2011 to 102,700 last year.
The largest decrease occurred in the financial services sector, where worker numbers fell from 54,027 in 2011 to 46,674 in 2011.
The CSO also calculated how many non-Irish nationals were in employment.
In April 2016, there were 347,233 non-Irish nationals in the labour force, with a participation rate of 73.9%.
Between 2011 and 2016, the number of non-Irish people at work increased by 9.6% to 293,830 people while the number of non-Irish nationals out of work decreased by 31%, from 77,460 to 53,403 people.
Deirdre Cullen, from the CSO, said the results provide a “comprehensive picture” of Ireland.
