Women are affected most in shake-out of part-time jobs during Covid crisis
2019 Women In From September, By Period End Up There Show 30,000 Same The The Of September Figures Were 85,600 At Cso Unemployed
Women are suffering a disproportionate share of the large shake-out of jobs mainly because the number of part-time jobs in the hardest-hit parts of the economy such as food service and accommodation has shrivelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, new figures reveal.
The CSO's authoritative Labour Force Survey shows that female unemployment rose by a larger amount compared with males in the three months to the end of September, even before the reimposition of a second round of State-wide restrictions last month.
There were 85,600 women who were unemployed at the end of September, up by 30,000 from the same period in 2019.
That compares with the 89,100 unemployed males, an increase of 16,700 from a year earlier, the CSO figures show.
The disproportionate number of women working part-time appears to explain the increase in unemployment between the genders. The number of females working part-time fell to 300,800 in the latest survey from 333,200 women in the third quarter in 2019.
The CSO said that its adjusted measure of unemployment — which takes into account the large number of people who need the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme to make ends meet — was at 15.9% in September and has since risen to more than 20%, in October.
Its Labour Force Survey also showed the effects of the Covid restrictions in terms of the number of hours worked.
CSO statistician Jim Dalton said the number of hours worked in the latest survey period, at 70.5m, was still down from the 74.5m hours worked in the third quarter in 2019, but had nonetheless risen from the 59.2m hours worked at the height of the first lockdown, in the second quarter this year.
At the same time, the survey shows the Irish labour force had increased to 2.47m by the end of September, driven by a rising population, even as the so-called participation rate in employment fell.
Dermot O'Leary, chief economist at broker Goodbody, said the adjusted unemployment figures had helped educate Government policies in regard to extending the wage-subsidy scheme.
Austin Hughes, KBC Bank chief economist, said the two measures of unemployment showed "the pace of change and the balance of risks in regard to the outlook for jobs", and will likely require the Government to spend even more on protecting employment and prevent long-term damage to the economy.
"Our repeated focus on the need for an aggressive policy response to the economic impact of the pandemic reflects a concern that significant numbers of temporary layoffs could morph into more lasting exclusion from employment opportunities," Mr Hughes said.
"As a permanent scarring of employment prospects is probably the most threatening economic consequence of Covid-19, these data underscore the importance of policy actions that are substantial, sustained, and focused on the uneven nature of the fallout in jobs," he said.