Fifty largest enterprises contribute nearly half of total turnover

/ 2nd November 2022 /

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 250 employees made up 99.8% of active enterprises and employed 68.4% of workforce in Ireland in 2020, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

There were 291,490 enterprises in the non-financial Irish business economy in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the 50 largest contributed 59.7% of total GVA and 46.4% of total turnover despite having just 5.5% of total persons engaged.

SMEs accounted for 41.9% of turnover generated and 34.5% of gross value added (GVA) that year, while large enterprises with 250 people or more made up two-thirds of GVA (65.5%) and 58.1% of turnover.

The services sector had the highest number of staff at 807,780 (47.4%), ahead of distribution 372,850 (21.9%), and industry 260,660 (15.3%), while construction (157,350) and financial & insurance (104,200) made up 9.2% and 61%, respectively.

Persons engaged in the industrial sector enjoyed the highest average sectoral wage in Ireland in 2020 at €53,750, but services made up almost half (49%) of all wages and salaries paid.

SMEs made up more than 99% of active businesses in Ireland in 2020. (Pic: CSO Ireland)

"Total turnover for the business economy was €816bn. Services enterprises represented 37.3% of this total, while industrial enterprises accounted for 36.7,%" said Eamonn Cleary, statistician in the business statistics division at the CSO.

"Gross value added (GVA) for the business economy was €276bn, of which gross operating surplus (GOS) was €216bn and personnel costs were €60bn."

The 283,150 Irish-owned enterprises operating in 2020 employed 1.1m and combined for a turnover of €234bn and GVA of €74bn, while foreign-owned multinationals in Ireland, had a combined turnover of €582bn and employed close to 458,000 people.

Irish multinationals abroad had a turnover of €237.7bn and employed 1.2m people.

A total of 18,740 enterprises were started in 2020 after more than 17,400 enterprises ceased trading in 2019, a marginal uptick year-on-year. Enterprise 'deaths' increased 9.2% in the 2015-19 period while the number of 'births' was up 3.6% on 2015.

(Pic: Getty Images)