Laois workers have the longest commute in Ireland as employment jumps

Laois workers face the longest average commutes for work of their counterparts in an other county according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

That's what's revealed in the latest set of data from the the Central Statistics Office from Census 2022 which focuses on Employment, Occupations and Commuting.

The CSO has found that there were almost 71,500 people living in the county in April 2022  aged 15 and over and of these almost 40,000 people were at work.

This was an increase of 19% (from the more than 33,500 people recorded as working in Census 2016). Nationally there were 2.3 million people at work in April 2022, which was up by 16%.

Almost 3,900 people were unemployed in the county in April 2022. This was considerably lower than the 2016 figure of almost 6,100 people (a decrease of 36%). The unemployment rate was 9% compared with 15% in 2016. Nationally there were almost 211,000 people unemployed compared with over 297,000 in Census 2016. The unemployment rate was 8% in 2022 compared with 13% in 2016. 

There were more than 9,700 retired people in Laois, up 20% since Census 2016. There was a 27% increase in the number of people who were unable to work due to permanent sickness or disability to 3,766 people. The number of people looking after their home/family fell by 6% to almost 5,700.

The labour force participation rate was 61% in Laois which was the same as the figure nationally. Among females the rate was 55% while for males it was 68%. Nationally the trend was similar at 56% for female labour force participation and 67% for males.

Most people in work in Laois were in full-time employment, with more than 30,100 people in this category, compared with almost 5,700 who were working part-time.

The wholesale and retail trade sector accounted for the largest number of workers in the county at almost 5,600. Human Health and Social Work Activities was the next largest, with just over 4,900 workers followed by Education with almost 3,700 workers.

A new question was included in Census 2022 asking people whether they ever worked from home and if so, for how many days per week.  There were almost 40,000 people at work in Laois in April 2022. Of these, over 25,600 never worked from home while almost 10,100 people worked from home at least some of the time. Of those working from home, more than 2,100 people did so for five days per week, with 1,786 doing so for two days and 1,767 for one day each week. 

There were 36,189 people travelling to work in the county in April 2022. The majority of these drove to work, with 23,944 people driving to work by car in 2022. There were 818 people travelling by train and 579 by bus. Looking at active travel, 2,073 people walked to work, up from 1,883 in 2016, while 367 people cycled, an increase of 121 people since 2016. 

Commuters in the county were travelling for longer in April 2022, with an average journey time of 32.3 minutes compared with 31.9 minutes in 2016. Nationally, the average journey time increased from 28.2 minutes to 29.1 minutes between 2016 and 2022. There were 8,575 Laois commuters who had a journey time of less than 15 minutes, while 9,096 people had a journey time of 15 to 30 minutes. A further 6,221 people had a journey time of 60 minutes and over.

Commuters in the county were travelling for an average distance of 25.3km, the longest in the country. The average distance nationally was 16.8km.  

In Laois, nearly 3,200 children aged under 5 travelled to childcare or school. Most of these (over 2,500) travelled by car, while 393 walked and 55 went by bus. MORE BELOW GRAPHIC.

Most of the 11,553 primary school aged children (5 to 12 years old) travelling to school in the county in April 2022 also travelled by car, with 7,455 doing so. Walking was the second most common means of travel at 1,513 children. A further 1,323 children used a bus while 211 children cycled. Primary school children in Portlaoise had an average journey time of 17 minutes, the third longest nationally (among towns with more than 1,500 residents). The average time for primary school children nationally was 12.2 minutes. 

Of the 7,972 secondary students (those aged 13-18 years) travelling to school, 3,776 were driven to school in a car, while 125 drove themselves to school. There were 2,205 students using a bus, and 88 using the train. A further 1,181 students walked to school while 172 cycled. 

For the 2,883 third-level students commuting, driving was the most popular means of travel, at 872 people. in total 472 students used a bus, while 467 walked. Another 345 students travelled by train, DART or Luas while 33 cycled.

The census took place on Sunday, April 3, 2022. Most of the statistics in this publication are reported on a usually resident and present basis and, unless stated otherwise, exclude visitors and people absent abroad on the night of the census.