On the 22nd May 2025, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for Quarter 1 2025, which covers the months January to March.
Unemployment
In this quarter 124,200 people were unemployed, an increase of 9,000 people from the same quarter in 2024. The unemployment rate in Q1 2025 was 4.3%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points (ppts) over the year.
The unemployment rate for women was 4.3%, 0.1 ppts higher than the same quarter in 2024. The unemployment rate for men was 4.3%, 0.3 ppt higher than Quarter 1 2024. Women accounted for 47.1% of the unemployed in Q1 2025, 1.3 percentage points lower than in Quarter 1 2024.
The unemployment rate for young people aged 15-24 years was 9.5%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over the year. The unemployment rate for people aged 25-74 years olds was 3.6%, an increase of 0.1 ppts from Quarter 1 2024. Young people accounted for 26.6% of the unemployed in Quarter 1 2025, an increase of 0.2 ppts.
The number of people deemed long-term unemployed (over one year) decreased by 10.1% over the year to 25,900 people. Women accounted for 50.6% of the long-term unemployed in Q1 2025, an increase of 6.2 ppts compared to Quarter 1 2024.
The Potential Additional Labour Force
The Potential Additional Labour Force (PALF) captures people who may not fit into the official definition of unemployment, whereby people have to be actively seeking work for the previous four weeks and available to take up work in the coming two weeks of the survey. In Q1 2025, PALF stood at 118,000, an increase of 15.3% or 15,700 people on Q1 2024. The CSO noted that “Of those who stated that they wanted to work but were not seeking work or available for work in Q1 2025, 29.5% said this was due to education or training. This compares to 29.0% a year earlier and 23.5% in Q1 2023. Persons not seeking work due to own illness or disability accounted for 31.7% of the total in Q1 2025, up from 26.4% in Q1 2024 and down from 34.3% in Q1 2023.”
Employment Figures
Over the year the number of people employed in Ireland increased by 3.3% to 2,794,100 people. Full-time employment increased by 3.3 ppts to 2,200,800 people, accounting for 78.8% of those in employment. The employment rate was 74.7%, an increase of 0.9 percentage point over the year. Women accounted for 41.8% of people in full-time employment in Quarter 1 2025, 0.3 percentage points lower than Q1 in 2024.
Over the year part-time employment increased by 20,000 people to 593,400: within this figure, part-time underemployment increased by 4.7% to 131,300 people. In Q1 2025 women accounted for 68% of people in part-time employment, and 61.6% of people who were underemployed.
The Labour Force
Over the year the Labour Force rose by 3.5% to 2,918,500 people. The labour force consists of people who are in employment plus people who are unemployed. Two factors influence changes in the Labour Force: the demographic effect (+57,700) and the participatory effect (+41,200).
The participation rate in Q1 2025 was 65.8%, up 0.8 percentage points on Q1 2024. The participation rate measures the share of the total population aged 15 years and over who are in the labour force. Over the year the participation rate increased by 0.3 ppts to 70.5% and for women it increased by 1.2 ppts to 61.3%.