Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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93. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will report on the employment figures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60678/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The CSO's Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a household survey which provides quarterly statistics on employment and unemployment and is the official source of labour market estimates in the State.

The latest LFS, for the third quarter of 2021, was published on 25th November. On an annual basis, employment increased by 221,200 in the year to Q3 2021 to 2,471,200. This represented an annual increase of just under 10 per cent. Employment increased by 113,400, or 4.8 percent in seasonally-adjusted terms, in the third quarter of 2021 alone. In that quarter employment was 98,700 more than the pre-pandemic peak of 2,367,000 recorded in Q1 2020.

It is positive to note that employment also increased in all eight regions over the twelve months to Q3 2021, with the largest increases recorded in the Border, Mid-West and Dublin regions, increasing by 18.8 percent, 10.4 percent and 10.2 percent respectively.

Employment also increased in all 14 economic sectors. It is unsurprising that the largest sectoral increase was in Accommodation and Food services, with a 28.8 percent annual increase in the number of people working in that sector, as it reopened during this period.

The LFS results show that employment levels are fast approaching the 2.5 million target set for 2024 in the Government’s Economic Recovery Plan. The growth in employment follows a similarly positive performance in Q2 and is reflective of the Government’s strategy to help workers and businesses throughout the pandemic, allowing them to return to work relatively quickly as public health restrictions eased, and the Government’s vaccination programme was rolled out.

The Government recognises that the recent additional public health measures to help reduce the spread of Covid-19 will have a big impact on some sectors and may slow this momentum in employment growth. It has, therefore, approved extra economic supports for impacted sectors, as well as a limited reopening of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, to ensure that businesses are in a position to fully reopen and workers return to work, once public health dangers have abated.