More than 870,000 people have been on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) from March 2020 up to the week ending August 29th, 2021, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
A new report published by the CSO, ‘Economic Life and Covid-19 in Ireland, 2020-2021’ analyses the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on citizens and enterprises up to Q2 2021, compared with before the pandemic.
It found that household expenditure on goods and services fell by €10 billion in 2020 compared with 2019, with spending on restaurants & hotels most affected, falling by €6.5 billion.
Household spending on alcoholic beverages (purchased for home consumption) rose by close to €0.5 billion in 2020
New dwelling completions fell by 536 units in 2020 compared with 2019 but by Q2 2021, new dwelling completions were higher than the same quarter in 2019 by 188 units
Wholesale cost of building and construction materials rose slightly in 2020 however, by Q2 2021 these materials were 5.7 per cent more expensive than the same quarter pre-pandemic (2019)
Government expenditure increased by €15.7bn in 2020, mainly due to spending on Covid-19 measures such as the PUP at €5.1 billion, while revenues fell by €4.5 billion.
In 2020, gross saving of households increased by 166 per cent, reaching €31.5bn in 2020.
Employment levels
Commenting on the report, Brian O’Mahony, statistician, said: “In the wake of the arrival of the pandemic in Ireland in March 2020, the numbers in employment fell by 158,100 in Q2 compared with Q2 2019 and remained below comparable 2019 levels for Q3 and Q4 2020, and Q1 2021.
"However, employment levels rebounded in Q2 2021, with 211,000 more people in employment than the previous year, and 52,900 more than in 2019. Higher employment levels were not experienced uniformly across all sectors; while Information & Communication had 20 per cent more employees in Q2 2021 than Q2 2019, Accommodation & Food Service Activities had close to a third fewer employees."
Households spent less on goods and services throughout 2020. However, despite a 22 per cent fall in retail sale volumes in Q2 2020 compared with Q2 2019, the volume of sales was almost 10 per cent higher in Q3 2020 and by 3.3 per cent in Q4 2020 than the same quarters in the previous year.
By Q2 2021, retail sale volumes were 8.7 per cent greater than the same quarter pre-pandemic (2019).
Apart from a fall of 0.8 per cent in Q3, property prices increased gradually throughout 2020 compared with 2019 and were 5.9 per cent more expensive in Q2 2021 than the same quarter in 2019.
However, growth in property prices was not uniform, with prices outside of Dublin rising by 7.2 per cent over this period, while prices in Dublin grew by 4.8 per cent.
The value of goods exported increased by €9.5bn (or 6.2 per cent) in 2020 compared with 2019, while the value of goods imported fell by €4.0 billion (or 4.3 per cent).
Based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the economy expanded by 5.9 per cent in 2020
