Official figures show that average weekly pay fell by 1.6% in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year.
The Central Statistics Office said average weekly pay in the second quarter was €690.48, down from €701.73 a year earlier. The CSO said this reflected a 1% fall in hourly pay and a 0.6% drop in the number of hours worked. The annual drop was smaller than the 3.7% recorded in the first quarter of the year.
A breakdown of the second quarter figures showed that weekly earnings in the public sector dropped by 4.4% over 12 months, compared with a 0.7% fall in the private sector. This reflects the cut in public sector pay rates announced in the last Budget, though the public sector figures do not take account of the effects of the pension levy introduced in March last year.
Average pay fell in 10 of the 13 categories, with the biggest drop of 8.3% in the education sector. Transportation and storage pay fell 7.3%.
The CSO said that, up to the end of last year, the biggest falls in pay were in smaller companies. But in the first six months of this year, weekly pay has been falling at an annual rate of around 1% in companies of all sizes.
The CSO also said the fall in the number of hours worked was the smallest since the current series of figures began in the first quarter of 2009. Average hourly earnings in the private sector were unchanged over the year at €19.32, while hourly earnings in the public sector fell 4.2% to €28.81.
