The earnings of workers in the Republic would have fallen last year without Government wage supports, figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.
The agency’s latest earnings data show the median (or middle) weekly income of employees here increased by 5.2 per cent to €629.46 in 2020.
However, when Government wage supports were removed, they fell by 1.1 per cent to €591.70.
The CSO said wage subsidy schemes payments accounted for 4.3 per cent of total earnings across all employments.
Sectors
The sectors with the highest proportion of employments supported by wage supports were accommodation and food services (81.9 per cent) and the arts, entertainment, recreation and other service activities (55.9 per cent).
The supports represented the highest proportion of earnings in the accommodation and food services sector (31.8 per cent) and the arts, entertainment, recreation and other service activities sector (14.6 per cent).
The figures also show that average annual earnings of workers in the Republic rose by 10 per cent to €50,076 in 2020.
However, the agency cautioned the rise masked major compositional changes in certain sectors triggered by the coronavirus crisis.
The headline figure reflects the earnings of those remaining in employment in 2020, including those supported by the Government wage supports but does not reflect those who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.
Workers in the information and technology (IT) sector had the highest annual earnings (€77,003) followed by those in the financial, insurance and real estate sector (€66,217).
Earnings
Workers in the accommodation and food sector were the lowest paid with average earnings of €27,235.
But again, the CSO cautioned employees who worked for less than 50 weeks in the year were excluded from the calculations for annual earnings.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions applied in response to it had a significant impact on the labour market in 2020,” CSO statistician Morgan O’Donnell said.
“Earnings statistics for 2020 and comparisons with earlier years are impacted by changes in the composition of the labour market across 2020 and when compared to 2019 and earlier years.”
“The level of earnings has also been impacted by the Covid-19 income support schemes introduced in 2020. These factors should be taken into account when considering the results presented in this publication,” he said.
