DAVY VIEW

Irish employment saw a 1.4% gain in Q1 2022 to 2.5m, helped by relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, and is now 8% above pre-pandemic levels. This is due to the exceptional performance of higher paid segments such as information and communications technology (ICT), finance, professional/scientific and manufacturing, which saw little disruption during the pandemic. Further, Ireland is enjoying strong labour force growth due to favourable demographics and rising participation. Hence, the unemployment rate fell only slightly to 5.0% in Q1 2022.