The number of people working in the multinational sector in Ireland has exceeded 300,000 following net foreign direct investment (FDI) employment growth of 9% in 2022, IDA Ireland has claimed.
Despite hundreds of high profile job cuts among big tech companies in recent weeks and a difficult global economic environment, a net of 24,020 FDI jobs have been added in 2022 as of 31 October. The data is based on self-reporting by client companies.
The agency estimates that 32,430 jobs have been created and 8,410 jobs lost.
IDA Ireland, the state agency for attracting FDI, said it won 242 investments this year, including 103 from new companies, and 127 or of those investments went to regions outside of Dublin.
Looking ahead, the IDA said there was a positive pipeline of jobs and investment in place for the first half of 2023, but warned that the outlook for the second half of next year would be more uncertain.
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Mary Buckley, interim CEO, said the "challenging and volatile international environment that we saw in 2021 escalated this year", adding that "severe headwinds facing the global economy" would require the agency to work harder for new investment.
IDA's 'core' sectors of IT (+9% to 116,190), modern manufacturing (+8% to 105,200), traditional manufacturing (+5.6% to 23,660) and business, financial and other services (+9%) and 56,430 saw consistent growth.
Employment growth was highest in the Mid East (+13.1% to 21,860), the Midlands (+10.5% to 7,670), and Dublin (+10.5% to 137,820).
The South West saw growth of 7.5% to 52,230, the West region was up 7.3% to 31,490 the Mid West recorded a growth increase of 3.6% to 26,000 and there was growth of 3% in the South East, to 15,520.
A total of 21 investments were considered related to sustainability, the majority of them focused on mitigating climate change.
The agency said big tech firms that have cut jobs will "continue to operate in Ireland and are important companies in the global and Irish ecosystem.
"IDA’s focus is on the continued partnership with these companies to continue to grow their presence in Ireland and deepen their impact on the Irish economy," the agency said in a statement. "The technology base in Ireland has been building for over 60 years and will continue to grow in the future, despite current challenges."
"Slower growth is likely in 2023 with less clarity in H2 of next year," Buckley added. "We continue to see opportunities across and within our sectors of focus, which we believe remain well aligned to the global economy of today and well positioned to succeed in the transformed economy of the future."
The agency said a forthcoming Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact (ABSEI) from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment shows payroll at FDI companies has risen 9.8% to €19.6bn.
Spend on Irish services and materials among FDI firms is set to increase 10% to €11.1bn and capital expenditure is expected to have risen 8% to €9.2bn. Similarly, exports of €315.5bn represent an increase of 8.7% year-on- year.
Enterprise minister Leo Varadkar said the figures show that Ireland continues to be seen as a location of choice for new investors and long-established companies who chose to reinvest in substantial expansions of their operations in Ireland.
"These are the best ever FDI employment figures in a single year. The net new jobs increase represents a 43% increase on 2021, which itself was a record year."
Photo: Mary Buckley (centre) and Leo Varadkar (right) with IDA chairman Frank Ryan. (Pic: Maxwell's)
