COVID-19 adjusted unemployment rate for January 2021

The COVID-19 crisis has continued to have a significant impact on the labour market in Ireland in January 2021. While the standard measure of Monthly Unemployment was 5.8% in January 2021, the COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment could indicate a rate as high as 25.0% if all claimants of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) were classified as unemployed.

The application of the standard methodology gives a seasonally adjusted Monthly Unemployment Rate of 5.8% for January 2021, unchanged from December 2020 and up from 5.1% in January 2020. The seasonally adjusted number of persons unemployed was 142,200 in January 2021, compared to 140,900 in December 2020. When compared to January 2020, there was an annual increase of 15,900 in the seasonally adjusted number of persons unemployed.  In January 2021, the Monthly Unemployment Rate was 6.0% for males and 5.6% for females.

If all claimants of the PUP were classified as unemployed, the upper bound, or COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment indicates a rate of 25.9% for males and 24.1% for females in January 2021. Breaking the results down by broad age group, the new COVID-19 Adjusted Measure of Unemployment is 56.4% for those aged 15 to 24 years and 21.4% for those aged 25 to 74 years