National: Employment rates in Ireland hit highest level since records began

The number of people in employment is Ireland is now at the highest rate since records began, despite a slight increase in the youth employment rate in the second quarter of the year.

Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that the employment rate for persons aged 15-64 years was 74.2% in Quarter 2 2023, which was the highest rate recorded since the series began in 1998.

The number of persons aged 15-89 years in employment increased by 88,400 or 3.5% to 2,643,000 persons in the 12 months to Q2 2023.

The employment rate for females aged 15-64 at 70.5% is at its highest level since the series began in 1998. The unemployment rate (15-74) for females was 4.2%, down from the Q2 2022 rate of 4.5%.

There were 121,200 unemployed persons aged 15-74 years in Q2 2023 using International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria, with an associated unemployment rate for those aged 15-74 of 4.4%, down from 4.5% in Q2 2022.

The unemployment rate among those aged 15-24 years (the youth unemployment rate) was 12.2% in Q2 2023, up from 11.4% in Q2 2022.

The estimated Labour Force (i.e., the sum of all persons aged 15-89 years who were either employed or unemployed) stood at 2,764,200 in Q2 2023, a rise of 3.4% (89,800) from Q2 2022.

The estimated participation rate in Q2 2023 was 65.7%, up from 65.2% in Q2 2022.

The estimated total number of hours worked per week in Q2 2023 increased by 1.1 million hours or 1.3% on Q2 2022 figures to 84.1 million hours.