Average weekly earnings fall 1.4%

AVERAGE weekly earnings fell by 1.4% year-on-year during the third quarter of the year — with the public sector taking the biggest hit.

New figures published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), show that, in all, the average Irish weekly wage fell to €685.10 in the three months to the end of September, from €694.69 for the same period last year.

The largest declines — in terms of sectors — were a 12.3% year-on-year fall in education salaries and a 6.2% fall in construction-related pay. However, there was a general earnings’ decline evident across most economic sectors — with eight out of the 13 measured seeing a fall.

Weekly earnings in the public sector fell by 4.5%, during the quarter, compared to a 0.3% fall in the private sector. Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, fell by 1.2% year-on-year from €21.74 to €21.47 — but were effectively unchanged in the private sector; while the public sector saw a 4.6% fall.

Although technically a preliminary estimate, employment levels — across the public and private sector — fell 2.8% during the year, to the third quarter; the private sector, alone, showing a 3% drop in employee levels and the public sector seeing a 2.4% deterioration over the same period.

Some 10,000 people lost their jobs in the public sector between the third quarter of last year and the same period this year.

Those employment figures don’t accurately tally with the latest quarterly national household survey (QNHS) — also published yesterday by the CSO — as they don’t measure the self-employed or those working in the agricultural sector, as the QNHS does.

“As part of the real devaluation process, earnings are falling in both the public and private sectors. However, unit labour costs are down more than this due to an increase in productivity, particularly in the exporting sector,” noted Dermot O’Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers.

On the employment front, he added: “Only three sectors have employment levels higher than a year ago. Relative to the third quarter of 2009, it’s no great surprise that construction employment has again fallen by the largest amount (-24% year-on-year), with administration and support services seeing the next largest drop (down 11%).”