The number of people working in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector stood at 82,228 last year, according to initial results from Census 2022.
The data published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that figure is down by almost 8% compared to Census 2016 when 89,116 people were employed in the industry.
It also marks a decrease of 10% on Census 2011 when 91,526 worked in these sectors.
Census
The CSO said that the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector continues to have a large proportion of male workers.
Census 2022 shows that 87.2% of workers in the industry were male (71,679), while 12.8% were female (10,549).
The data also reveals that 20% of workers in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries industry were aged 65 and over. 30% of the workers in the sector were under the age of 45.
The largest age cohort in the sector was from 55-64 with 27% or 22,331 workers.
The census data shows that there were 2.3 million people at work in April 2022, 87% of whom were employees. The number of self-employed workers fell since 2016 and accounted for 13% of workers in 2022.
The number of self-employed workers in the skilled agricultural and related trades area was down 13% to just under 56,500 workers. The CSO said that this was driven mainly by a drop in the number of farmers.
The sector with the most workers employed in 2022 was the wholesale and retail trade with just under 277,000 workers, up by 4% since 2016.
The number of people working in the construction industry stood at nearly 135,000, up 32% since 2016.
Census 2022 also marked the first time in 171 years that Ireland’s population exceeded the five million threshold.
There were 5,149,139 people in the State on April 3, 2022, an 8% increase since April 2016. Every county recorded population growth between 2016 and 2022.
The average age of the population increased from 37.4 in 2016 to 38.8 in 2022, compared with 36.1 in 2011.
Almost 80% of households had a broadband internet connection in 2022 up from 71% in 2016 and 64% in 2011.
Nearly a quarter of households reported that they used renewable energy sources.