More than 1.36m people have received Covid-19 income support – CSO

Public health measures introduced in March 2020 to control the spread of the virus saw the Covid-19 adjusted rate of unemployment peak at 31.5% in April 2020, before falling back to just under 16% in September 2020. File Picture: PA

More than 1.36 million people had received one or more of the Government’s Covid-19 income supports by June this year, new data shows.

The number of people left without work peaked in April last year, when Ireland hit an unemployment rate of 31.5% when the Government brought in widespread restrictions.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has published a snapshot of the impact of Covid-19 on Ireland based on its statistics.

Figures show that before the pandemic hit, the highest number of people in employment in Ireland was recorded in quarter four of 2019, when more than 2.36 million people were in employment and Ireland had an unemployment rate of 4.5%.

Public health measures introduced in March 2020 to control the spread of the virus saw the Covid-19 adjusted rate of unemployment peak at 31.5% in April 2020, before falling back to just under 16% in September 2020.

The reintroduction of restrictions in the new year saw it rise again to more than 27% in January 2021.

The easing of restrictions over the course of this year has seen this unemployment rate fall back to 12.4% in August 2021.

Those who were displaced from their job due to the pandemic were more likely to be younger, lower-skilled and in part-time positions than the population average.

While employment levels declined by 116,600 people from the beginning of January last year to January 2021, the CSO said that a more striking illustration of the impact of the virus on the labour market is that there were almost 7.6 million fewer hours worked per week in the same period.

This almost 10% reduction in hours worked was most pronounced in the hospitality, construction and other service activities sectors which include culture and recreation.

From April until June this year, 17% of all active employments were directly supported by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), but this was as high as 76% for the hospitality and food services sector.

In the first three months of the year, households saved more than 10 billion euro – more than four times the amount usually saved in the first quarter of the year.

The CSO estimates that approximately €14bn euro of Government spending in 2020 was directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Figures also show that revenues in 2020 were €3.6bn lower than in 2019, largely due to the restrictions in place over the course of the year.

The main driver of the decline was indirect taxes – reduced VAT receipts and the waiver of commercial rates leading to a reduction of €3.3bn in revenues.