HOUSEHOLDS saved an additional €28bn last year.
This was €14bn more than in the previous year as opportunities to spend were severely limited by the lockdowns.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that households went from putting 12pc of their disposable income into savings to putting 23pc of their income aside.
Higher incomes for those fortunate to be able to work from home combined with the restricted spending opportunities to send savings levels surging.
The CSO said: “The uncertainty around the trajectory of the pandemic may also have induced ‘precautionary savings’ as households kept money back, anticipating tightening finances in the future.”
Covid spending to reach €28 billion by end of 2021
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Tough lockdown measures keep unemployment rate at 24%
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The number of redundancies flagged to the Government is now four times higher than before the Covid-19 crisis began.
New figures show there were 970 potential redundancies notified to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment last month.
This compared with 212 in February last year.
A total of 984 redundancies were notified in January, up from 233 in January last year.
In the first 10 days of this month, employers have notified the department of a further 268 possible redundancies.
“The number of redundancies is running at four to five times higher than this time in 2020, and this means that even though the Government is doing an enormous amount of work keeping people in jobs, it’s still a very, very tough environment for firms,” said Tom McDonnell, co-director at the Nevin Economic Research Institute.