Think 2009 was tough? You’re likely working longer hours now

Irish people are working a longer working week than they did five years ago and, despite the economic recovery, there are still fewer people employed than in 2009.

Statistics from the Central Statistics Office show the average working week is now 35.7 hours - a half hour longer than it was five years ago.

When part-time workers are excluded the working week is 40.3 hours a week, meaning those who are employed full time work 48 minutes longer each week than they did in 2009.

Farmers and fishermen work the longest hours at 50.4 hours a week whereas those in education have the shortest working week at 29.7 hours (these figures include both full- and part-time workers).

In the first quarter of this year, the number of people in employment stood at 1.93 million, up by more than 2 per cent on the same period in the previous year.

However, despite the economic recovery the number of people in work in the first quarter of 2015 is still 3.4 per cent lower than in the same period in 2009.

Construction industry

Despite a strong recovery in the construction industry within the past year the the number of people employed in the industry is a third lower in the first three months of the year than in the same period in 2009.

In absolute terms that means there are 61,000 fewer construction jobs today than five years ago.

Within the occupational groups there has been an increase in the number of jobs in a number of categories, with managers, directors and senior officials seeing the highest increase in job numbers in the past five years.

In the same period, the number of professionals and those in associate professional and technical positions also increased.

A larger proportion of workers are now in part-time jobs than five years ago.

Of the 439,900 people in part-time employment, over than a third said they were working part-time as they were unable to find a full-time job; one in five said it was because of personal or family reasons and one in six said they worked part time because they were looking after children or incapacitated adults.

Responding to the figures, Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín said an increase in the proportion of people who said they were working in part-time or temporary jobs because they couldn’t find a permanent job showed “precarious work remains entrenched in Ireland’s labour market”.

“There are also still too many people forced to work part-time because the full-time jobs just aren’t there,” he said.