THE AVERAGE WEEKLY wage in Ireland was €687.28 gross at the end of last year, down €4 on the same time in 2012.

The figure represented a rise of €10 on the third quarter of 2013.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that Irish people are also working longer for their pay. The average weekly work hours in 2012 was 31.6 hours, whereas it is now 31.7.

The figures also show a 0.5% decline in labour costs.

Nine of 13 economic areas surveyed recorded a bump in average pay, with the largest percentage increase in the transportation and storage sector.

The largest percentage sectoral decrease in weekly earnings was recorded in the administrative and support activities sector.

In the last four years, wages in most industries have stagnated or, in the cases of health, construction and public service, dropped dramatically.

In the case of information and communication roles, however, there has been an increase of 23.4% in the average wage.

Numbers in the public sector also fell, with 1.4% less people employed by the end of 2013 than the previous year.

In total the numbers went from 381,800 to 376,300, with 1,900 of those coming from the semi-state sector.

Read: 250,000 households have less than €15,000 a year to live on

Read: ‘A good day for low-paid workers’ as JLCs are retained