The hospitality/accommodation and food services sector saw the largest fall in employment numbers during the first wave of the Covid pandemic, according to latest research by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The CSO’s second of three reports measuring the impact of the pandemic on the different areas of the Irish economy show the accommodation sector suffered a massive 38% drop in employee numbers between the final quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020.
That fall represented 68,700 fewer people working in the sector.
“In terms of recovery, most sectors returned to their Q4 2019 levels of employment between Q1 2021 and Q3 2021, with the exception of Administrative & Support Services and Accommodation & Food Services, where numbers in employment did not recover to pre-pandemic levels until Q3 2022 and Q3 2023 respectively,” noted CSO statistician Colin Hanley.
