Number of people employed increased by 21,000 in Q2 2026
Kenneth Fox
The number of people in employment increased by more than 21,000 in the second quarter of the year, compared to the same period last year.
There are now more than 2.8 million people employed, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The largest increase in employment by sector was in Education, which was up 6 per cent.
However, the largest decline was in the Professional, Scientific and Technical activities sector, which was down over 8 per cent.
The number of people aged 15 to 89 years in the labour force increased by 31,300 or 1.1 per cent to 2,990,200 people in the 12 months to Q2 2026.
The employment rate for people aged 15 to 64 years was 74.3 per cent in Q2 2026, down from 74.7 per cent in Q2 2025.
There were 151,000 unemployed people aged 15 to 74 years in Q2 2026 using International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria, with an associated unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent, up from 4.8 per cent in Q2 2025.
The estimated labour market participation rate in Q2 2026 was 66.0 per cent, down from 66.4 per cent in Q2 2025.
The estimated total number of hours worked per week in Q2 2026 was 89.0 million hours, unchanged when compared with Q2 2025
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the official measure of employment and unemployment in Ireland.
Commenting on the release, Colin Hanley, statistician in the labour market and earnings division, said: "An estimated 589,600 or 20.8 per cent of those in employment worked part-time, and 153,800 or 26.1 per cent of those in part-time employment were classified as underemployed (i.e. they would like to work more hours for more pay).
In the 12 months to Q2 2026, the age group with the highest employment rate was the 45 to 54 years age group (85.8 per cent), which was up 0.7 percentage points from the 85.1 per cent recorded in Q2 2025.
The lowest employment rate by age was observed in the 15 to 19-year-old group at 25.6 per cent.
The number of people who worked from home fell by 22,500, or 2.2 per cent, to 990,600 in Q2 2026, compared with Q2 2025. At the same time, those who never worked from home rose by 43,800, or 2.4 per cent to 1,839,400.
The unemployment rate for males was unchanged at 5.0 per cent while the female unemployment rate increased 0.7 percentage points to 5.2 per cent.
There were 38,900 people in long-term unemployment (unemployed for 12 months or longer) in Q2 2026, 7,200 more people than in Q2 2025. The corresponding rate of long-term unemployment was 1.3 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent a year earlier."
