THE AVERAGE ANNUAL earnings of a worker in Ireland is just under €39,000, according to the 2018 figures released by the CSO.

Last year, the average wage was €38,871 which represents a 3.3% increase on the €37,637 average wage in 2017.

For full-time employees the average annual earnings were €47,596 – up 2.6% on 2017 – while the average earnings for part-time employees were €17,651 – an increase of 3.5% on the previous year.

The CSO recorded a rise in annual total earnings in all 13 economic sectors.

Following the increase in earnings for employees, the cost of labour also increased by 7.1% to €82.7 billion, over two-thirds of which was made up by full-time employees.


Both earnings and labour costs have been steadily increasing over the past five years.

Figures released by the CSO last week showed Ireland has reached full employment after the unemployment rate slipped below the 4.5% threshold and reached 4.4%.

Meanwhile in December, a report from the National Skills Bulletin reported there was 2.19 million people employed in Ireland.

Hourly rate

While the national minimum wage in Ireland currently sits at €9.80 per hour, the latest release from the CSO shows an average hourly rate of more than double that.

It recorded average hourly earnings in Ireland as €23.07 in 2018 – up 2.8% on the previous year.

Full-time employees averaged an hourly rate of €24.76 while part-time employees averaged an hourly rate of €16.18.

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Education sector was the best paid sector on the list at average hourly earnings of €35.82 – employees in that sector recorded the lowest number of average weekly paid hours of 23.7.

Behind that was the Information and Communication sector and the Financial, Insurance and Real Estate sector with average hourly earnings just above €32 – and average weekly paid hours of 36.5 and 35 respectively.

The Industry sector had the highest average weekly paid hours at 38.4 hours, followed by the Construction sector and the Public Administration and Defence sector which recorded average weekly paid hours of 37.2 and 36.8 respectively.

The economic sector with the lowest recorded hourly earnings was Accommodation and Food which recorded an average of €12.54 per hour.