More than half of workers in Ireland with a third level education spend all or most of their time working on a digital device.
But new data from the CSO shows that a similar proportion of those with a lower secondary education or below spend all or most of their working time doing hard physical work.
The Job Skills 2022 survey from the CSO found that overall, of all those aged between 15-74 across all levels of educational attainment who are working or recently worked, more than a third spent all or most of their time working on a digital device.
While just under a quarter spent all or most of their working time doing hard physical work.
"The 15-24 year-old age group spent the least amount of time working on digital devices, with 15% saying they spent all or most of their working time using them," said Sam Scriven, statistician in the Labour Market and Earnings Division at the CSO.
"Conversely, this age group spent the most time engaged in hard physical work with 36% saying they spent all or most of their work time on this type of activity."
"The opposite pattern was observed in the age groups between 25 and 44 years, who spent the most time working on digital devices (44% of 25-34 and of 35-44 spent all or most of their working time on digital devices) but the least amount of time on hard physical tasks (19% of 25-34 spent all or most of their working time on hard physical tasks)."
Around 11% of respondents spent all or most of their working time advising, training or teaching people.
More than one in every two said they spent at least half their working time interacting with people from inside their enterprise or organisation.
The data also shows that women were almost twice as likely to spend more of their time advising, training, or teaching other people than men.
While more men than women said they spent at least half their working time on hard physical work.
