CSO: Fewer people worked in agriculture, forestry, fishing in Q1 2025
New figures released today (Thursday, May 22) by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that fewer people worked in the agriculture, forestry, fishing sectors in quarter one (Q1) of this year compared to the same period in 2024.
According to the CSO in Q1 2025 there were 107,600 people, aged 15-89 years, working in these sectors compared to 108,500 in Q1 2024.
The economic sectors which saw the largest year-on-year increases in employment in Q1 2025 were education, which increased by 9.3% and the financial, insurance and real estate sectors which increased by 11.5%.
The latest CSO Labour Force Survey highlights that overall an estimated 2,794,100 persons were in employment in Q1 2025 - which is up 3.3% (89,900) from 2,704,200 in Q1 2024.
Meanwhile, the number of people aged 15-74 years who were unemployed in Q1 2025 stood at 124,200.
The survey also outlines that the number of people aged 15-89 years in employment rose by 89,900 or 3.3% to 2,794,100 people in the 12 months to Q1 2025.
Colin Hanley, statistician in the CSO labour market and earnings division, said: "The 3.3% rise in the number of people in employment in the 12 months to Q1 2025 was equivalent to 89,900 more people working than a year earlier.
"An estimated 593,400 or 21.2% of those in employment worked part-time, and 131,300 or 22.1% of those in part-time employment were classified as underemployed -i.e. they would like to work more hours for more pay)".
Hanley also said that the largest increase in employment by economic sector was in the education sector, which rose by 21,500 people.
"The largest decrease in employment was in wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, down by 8,200 people (-2.5%)," he added.
According to the CSO, the estimated total number of hours worked in Q1 2025 was 86.5 million hours per week - which was 1.0 million more hours worked per week when compared with Q1 2024.
It found that the year-on-year change in hours worked varied across the different economic sectors.
The information and communication and education sectors both saw an additional 500,000 hours worked when compared with Q1 2024.
The largest sectoral decrease in hours worked was in the wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sector, which was down 500,000 hours in the year to Q1 2025.
