89% of Irish employees are satisfied at work

If you are an employer in Ireland, then we have good news for you. In a study, taken in Q3 of 2021, results revealed that 89% of employees are satisfied in work.

The dissatisfied employees cited work pressures such as having to work long hours or more than their contracted hours, and lack of promotional opportunities impacted job satisfaction.

Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) published the results this week in the second of three publications on the results of the Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey conducted last year. It covers life satisfaction and the type of support networks available from family, friends, and community, and job satisfaction and the factors that impact on satisfaction in the workplace.

While the survey focussed primarily on persons in employment, it also looked at barriers to work for persons not currently in employment.

The third and final publication “Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey 2021 – Remote Working” will be published on 26 April 2022.

Moving on

Employees who said they were mostly likely to leave their jobs in the next six months where in the temporary or part time worker category. Or those who have been only a short time with their current employer.

The main barrier to return to work, for those unemployed, was long-standing health problems (28%), followed by caring for dependent family or friends (13%) and childcare issues (11%). A further 21% of the unemployed surveyed said there were no barriers preventing a return to work.

Life and job satisfaction high

Speaking about the report Maureen Delamere, statistician, said, “Despite living through more than eighteen months of the pandemic and its associated restrictions on our personal and working lives, life and job satisfaction rates remained high amongst the Irish population when the survey was conducted during the months of July, August, and September 2021. Almost nine in ten persons were satisfied or very satisfied with their life as a whole.”

“Employees who were dissatisfied with their job, almost six in 10 (59%) never have enough time to get their job done, compared with 44% of workers who are happy in their job. Also, just short of half (49%) of those who have to work more than their contracted hours to get the job done are dissatisfied with their job, compared with four in 10 (40%) employees who said that they were satisfied with their job.”

“Full-time workers with long service were more likely to turn down an offer of a better paid job elsewhere than part-time workers with same service or employees, full and part-time with less service,” she added.