Earnings Data

After a wait of over four months since we last examined earnings data on the Irish economy, the CSO have released the latest update of the Earnings, Hours and Employment Costs Survey.  This gives updated data for Q3 2009 so there is a significant lag in how quickly the data is published.
The headline figure is that there was a small drop of 0.8% in weekly earning in Q3 2009 compared to the same period 12 months earlier.  However, it should be note that hourly pay actually increased by 1.8% with the drop in earnings driven by a fall in the weekly hours worked of 2.6%.
Average weekly earnings in the private sector fell by 2.7%, while there was an increase in average weekly earnings in the public sector of 1.9%.  Note though that these are gross earnings and the public sector figures ignore the effect of the public sector pension levy introduced in March 2009.  This levy reduced take home pay in the public sector by between 5% and 8%. 

	Average Weekly Earnings	Annual Change	Quarterly Change
Industry	778.47	+0.1	-2.1
Construction	736.74	-2.4	-0.5
Retail & Wholesale	492.17	-3.2	-0.8
Transport & Storage	709.43	-6.6	-6.8
Accommodation & Food Service	352.64	+0.6	+2.9
Information & Communication	925.39	-5.3	+0.8
Financial, Insurance & Real Estate	901.02	-2.3	-3.3
Administrative & Support Services	798.52	-0.1	-1.1
Professional, Scientific & Technical	466.77	-3.8	-5.5
Public Admin & Defence	982.08	+3.0	-1.0
Education	878.10	-1.9	+1.6
Health & Social Work	759.68	+4.6	+0.8
Arts, Entertainment & Others	462.41	-8.9	-2.3