Average weekly earnings hit record €880.37 amid concern over wage demands

Average weekly earnings rose to a record €880.37 in the first quarter of 2022, an annual increase of 2.3 per cent, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show. The rise comes amid concern that inflation-fuelled wage demands may trigger a wage-price spiral in the Irish economy.

The CSO also warned that Covid-19 had changed the composition of the workforce in various sectors. “When considering the change in earnings, it should be noted that there may be a compositional effect due to the significant changes in employment in certain sectors,” CSO statistician Louise Egan said.

The average weekly earnings of workers in the worst-hit accommodation and food services sector rose by 2.8 per cent to €400, but this again reflected the earnings of those still employed in the sector after Covid.

Hospitality workers are the lowest paid workers in the State, but the sector has the highest rate of part-time staff, which anchors the average.

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Their average earnings are 50 per cent below the national average and a third of IT workers’, who had the highest weekly earnings (€1,506.04) of any sector, up 5.4 per cent on the previous year.

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The second highest paid were workers in the financial, insurance and real estate sector, which had weekly earnings of €1,358.72, up 1 per cent year on year.

The sectors showing the largest percentage decrease in employments were the accommodation and food services sector (-5.3 per cent) and the transportation and storage sector (-3.9 per cent).

The CSO data indicated that payments from the Government’s Employee Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) accounted for 36 per cent of total earnings in the accommodation and food services sector, while in the arts and entertainment sector it accounted for 11.8 per cent.

Some 65.5 per cent of employment in the accommodation and food services sector was supported by the EWSS in the first quarter of 2022. The Government’s support scheme for Covid-hit businesses came to an end on Tuesday.

The job vacancy rate, which measures job vacancies on the last working day of the quarter, was 1.6 per cent, up from 1.4 per cent at the end of the fourth quarter of last year and up from 1 per cent at the beginning of 2021.