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Small and Medium Enterprises

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This chapter outlines some of the main CSO statistics available for SMEs. Chapter 4, which deals with Business Performance in Ireland, also contains data on these enterprises.

SMEs are defined as enterprises with less than 250 persons engaged. In this chapter, SMEs are further split into Micro enterprises with less than 10 persons engaged, other Small enterprises with between 10 and 49 persons engaged and Medium sized enterprises with between 50 and 249 persons engaged. See Appendix 3.

See Tables 3.1 and 3.2 in this chapter for more detail on the data used in graphs.

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SMEs (<250)Large (250+)
Active enterprises99.80.2
Persons engaged69.130.9
Turnover47.852.2
GVA38.861.2
  • Large enterprises employed almost 31% of all persons engaged in 2015 and accounted for 0.2% of total number of enterprises 
  • Small and Medium enterprises accounted for 99.8% of total number of enterprises in 2015 and over 69% of all persons engaged
  • SMEs generated 47.8% of total Turnover in the business economy and almost 39% of Gross Value added was attributed to these enterprises
  • Micro enterprises accounted for 92.2% of all enterprises in 2015
  • Small and Medium enterprises accounted for 7.5% of the total number of enterprises, while Large enterprises accounted for the remaining 0.2%
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Active enterprises
Micro (<10)92.2
Small (10-49)6.4
Medium (50-249)1.1
Large (250+)0.2
  • Large enterprises accounted for the greatest percentage of persons engaged in 2015 at nearly 31% despite having the lowest number of enterprises
  • Micro enterprises accounted for almost 28% of persons engaged and had the highest number of enterprises
  • Small and Medium enterprises combined accounted for 41.5% of total persons engaged in 2015
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Persons engaged
Micro (<10)27.6
Small (10-49)21.9
Medium (50-249)19.6
Large (250+)30.9
  • SMEs accounted for almost 39% of all Gross Value Added in the Business Economy in 2015
  • Micro enterprises contributed 18.7% of total GVA
  • Small and Medium enterprises generated the remaining 20.1% of Gross Value Added
  • Large enterprises accounted for just over 61% of GVA
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GVA
Micro (<10)18.7
Small (10-49)10
Medium (50-249)10.1
Large (250+)61.2
SMEs (<250)Large (250+)
Construction94.55.5
Services73.826.2
Distribution72.627.4
Industry53.446.6
Financial and Insurance33.566.5
  • Construction had the largest share of its persons engaged in Small and Medium enterprises in 2015, at 94.5%
  • Both the Services and Distribution sectors reported over 70% of all persons engaged to be in SMEs
  • Unlike other sectors, the majority of employment for the Financial and Insurance sector, 66.5%, came from Large enterprises
SMEs (<250)Large (250+)
Construction90.99.1
Distribution77.222.8
Services60.739.3
Industry12.987.1
  • In the Construction sector, almost 91% of all Gross Value Added was in Small and Medium enterprises in 2015
  • SMEs in the Distribution and Services sectors recorded over 77% and almost 61% of the GVA in their sectors respectively
  • Industry SMEs accounted for just under 13% of GVA
IndustryConstruction DistributionServicesFinancial and Insurance
% of active enterprises6.920.418.751.32.8
  • Small and Medium enterprises made up 51% of the number of enterprises in the Services sector in 2015, with Construction having the second highest percentage of SMEs at 20.4%
  • The Financial and Insurance sector accounted for just 2.8% of all SMEs. This is largely reflective of the fact that the majority of enterprises in this sector were Large enterprises
IndustryConstruction DistributionServicesFinancial and Insurance
% of persons engaged12.210.625.947.93.4
  • The Services sector accounted for the largest proportion of persons engaged in Small and Medium enterprises in 2015 with almost 48%. The lowest proportion was in the Financial and Insurance sector with just 3.4%
  • Having accounted for over 20% of all active Small and Medium enterprises, Construction accounted for just 10.6% of persons engaged in SMEs
  • The Distribution sector accounted for 25.9% of all persons engaged in 2015 even though it had only 18.7% of all active SMEs
  • The Industry sector reported 12.2% of all persons engaged and 6.9% of all Small and Medium enterprises
IndustryConstruction DistributionServices
GVA17.1821.253.7
  • Enterprises in the Services sector accounted for almost 54% of all SME Gross Value Added
  • The Distribution and Industry sectors had 21% and 17% of GVA respectively
  • Small and Medium Enterprises in the Construction sector recorded the lowest rate of Gross Value Added at 8%
IndustryConstructionDistributionServicesFinancial and InsuranceTotal business economy
2010100100100100100100
201198.990.999.5100.6104.499.1
201296.285.798.6102.910498.9
201395.386.698.9105.4105.4100.2
201499.692.4100.4110.4106.9104.1
2015102.9102.8103.6116.7112.7109.6
  • All sectors experienced an overall increase in persons engaged in Small and Medium Enterprises between the base year 2010 and 2015
  • Services reported the largest increase in the period 2010 to 2015 at 16.7%, with the Financial and Insurance sector next at 12.7%
  • The total business economy showed an overall increase of 9.6% for the same period
IndustryConstructionDistributionServicesFinancial and InsuranceTotal business economy
2010100100100100100100
2011100.88399.898.798.299.2
2012101.579.5101.9101.2100101
2013104.699.9106.9105.397.5104.1
2014109.9163.4107.4108.397107.2
2015118.5130.1108.9117.496.5112.3
  • All sectors  apart from the Financial and Insurance sector experienced an overall increase in persons engaged in Large enterprises between the base year 2010 and 2015
  • Construction showed the largest overall increase in persons engaged in Large enterprises in the period 2010 to 2015 with an increase of 30.1%, followed by the Industrial sector at 18.5%
  • The Financial and Insurance sector experienced a decrease of 3.5% between 2010 and 2015
  • With respect to Large enterprises, the total business economy employment showed an overall increase of 12.3% between 2010 and 2015
3.1 Number of active enterprises and persons engaged by sector and size class, 2015

3.2 Turnover and gross value added by sector and size class, 2015

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