The number of people employed across the country in the first three months of the year stood at just below two million, representing an annual rise of 2.4%, while there are nearly 85,000 more people at work now than there were six years ago.
Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that there have been consecutive quarterly gains in employment on each occasion since Q2 2012.
According to the CSO data, the average number of weekly hours worked has risen by 0.9 hours since 2010, from 34.9 hours then to 35.8 hours between January and March of this year.
People working in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector work the most hours per week on average at 49.1, while the education sector has the lowest average working week, at 29.4 hours.
Meanwhile, the number of self-employed people has risen by 5.5% since 2010 to more than 325,000.
During the same period, there has been a 9.2% rise in the number of self-employed workers in the skilled trades sector.
The largest rate of increase of employment in an occupational group over the past six years was recorded in the managers, directors and senior officials group, where the number of people employed increased by 21,600 (+15.2%) from 142,500 in Q1 2010 to 164,100 this year.
The CSO has also identified that the number of temporary employees as a percentage of total employees has fallen by 1.2% to 7.7% since Q1 2010.
