Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 28 Jun 2000

Vol. 522 No. 3

Written Answers. - Numbers at Work.

Noel Ahern

Ceist:

107 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Finance if he will give details, for each of the years 1987 to 2000, of the numbers at work in the country judged by (i) the number of people paying PAYE, (ii) the labour force surveys and (iii) any other data available; and the PAYE income tax paid for each of those years. [18741/00]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy):

In relation to the numbers at work in the country, as judged by the labour force survey-quarterly national household survey, the information requested by the Deputy is as follows:

Year	Numbers at work (Labour ForceSurvey ¼ly Nat. Household Survey)*
1987	1,090,000
1988	1,111,000
1989	1,111,000
1990	1,160,000
1991	1,156,000
1992	1,165,000
1993	1,183,000
1994	1,221,000
Year	Numbers at work (Labour ForceSurvey ¼ly Nat. Household Survey)*
1995	1,282,000
1996	1,329,000
1997	1,380,000
1998	1,495,000
1999	1,591,000
2000	1,651,000

The labour force survey figures do not distinguish workers according to tax status.

*Notes

The figure for 1987 is based on Principal Economic Status (PES) while the figures from 1988 on are based on the International Labour Office (ILO).

The figures from 1987 to 1997 are taken from the Labour Force Survey while the figures from 1998 on are taken from the Quarterly National Household Survey.

The figure for 2000 is the latest figure published.

The numbers of PAYE taxpayers cannot be considered to be a measure of the total numbers at work as (i) they do not include workers who have no tax liability –‘exempt' cases, (ii) they do not include the self-employed and (iii) a married couple who has elected or has been deemed to have elected for joint assessment is counted as one tax unit. However, the data requested by the Deputy is as follows:

Year	Numbers ofPAYE Taxpayers†	PAYE Net Receipts£ million
1987	739,000	2,137.7
1988	739,000	2,278.9
1989	751,000	2,335.7
1990	756,000	2,459.2
1991	757,000	2,670.1
1992	770,000	2,786.6
1993	790,200	3,030.3
1994	840,000	3,271.2
1995	885,500	3,514.6
1996	918,000	3,894.4
1997	977,900	4,356.4
1998	1,038,300*	4,755.1
1999	1,030,600*	5,224.9
2000	1,032,800*	5,479.0**

†The numbers shown for PAYE taxpayers include a small number of schedule E non-PAYE taxpayers (currently about 3,000).

*These figures are provisional and subject to revision.

**The net receipt figure shown for PAYE in respect of the year 2000 is the Budget Estimate.