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You are here: Home / Statistics / Structural Business Statistics 2015
The number of enterprises in the Structural Business Economy was up 4.4% annually to 260,267 in 2015
The number of persons engaged showed a greater annual increase up 5.3% in 2015, to 1,368,200 persons
Between 2013 and 2015, the number of persons engaged in the Structural Business Economy has increased 9.2%, an overall increase of 114,749 persons
Total turnover in the business economy increased 30.5% between 2014 and 2015, bringing the value to €601.1bn in 2015, which was largely driven by increases in the industrial sector
Gross Value Added, which represents the value of goods and services produced in the economy, was €182.3bn across all business sectors in 2015. This was a 49.6% annual increase and a 60.2% increase since 2013. See Headline Table
This release provides details of the individual surveys in the Structural Business Economy i.e. Census of Industrial Production, Annual Services Inquiry and the Building & Construction Inquiry. It will also analyse these sectors by size class of enterprise and nationality of ownership.
Note:Industry data was revised in November 2017, for further information contact Business Statistics, Results, Analysis & Publications at sbs_rap@cso.ie
Significant increases in the value of Industrial Production in 2015
Industrial Gross Value Added in Ireland more than doubled from €42.9bn in 2014 to €95.0bn in 2015, an annual increase of 121.4%
The number of Industrial enterprises in Ireland in 2015 was 17,176, an annual increase of 4.1%
The number of persons engaged in Industrial Production in Ireland in 2015 increased by 5.3% to 221,797
Turnover in the Industrial sector in Ireland increased 83.6% to €233.8bn in 2015. See Figure 2 and Table 1
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Turnover
Gross Value Added
2013
119.345
41.165
2014
127.366
42.92
2015
233.804
95.025
Large Industrial enterprises employed 45.4% of total persons engaged in 2013 and this figure rose to 46.6% in 2015
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) employed 54.6% of total persons engaged in 2013. This figure fell slightly to 53.4% in 2015
In 2015 Large enterprises reported a yearly increase in the number of persons engaged of 7.8% to 103,421. This brought the total increase to 13.3% since 2013
The numbers of persons engaged in Industrial SMEs rose by 3.3% from 2014 to 2015 and by 7.9% since 2013 to 118,376 in 2015. See Figure 3
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Large (250+ persons)
SME (<250 persons)
2013
91303
109688
2014
95903
114642
2015
103421
118376
Gross Value Added in Large Industrial enterprises increased from €30.4bn in 2014 to €81.4 bn in 2015, an annual rise of 168.1%
Industrial SMEs experienced an increase in GVA from €12.6bn in 2014 to €13.6bn in 2015, an annual increase of 8.5%
In 2015, the split for Industrial GVA between Large enterprises and SMEs was 86:14 in favour of Large enterprises. See Figure 4
Construction GVA shows an annual increase of over 10%
In 2015 there was an annual increase in GVA of 10.3% from €5.6bn in 2014 to €6.2bn
The year on year change in Construction turnover showed an increase of 8.1% up from €14.2bn in 2014 to €15.4bn in 2015
In 2015 the number of Construction enterprises increased by 6.8% from 47,349 in 2014 to 50,546
The year on year change showed that the number of persons engaged in these enterprises rose 8.9% from 99,860 to 108,720. See Figure 8 and Table 3
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Turnover
Gross Value Added
2013
9.997
4.214
2014
14.208
5.62
2015
15.358
6.198
Persons engaged in SMEs rose by 11.3% to 102,690 in 2015 from 92,289 in the previous year
Persons engaged in Large enterprises dropped by 20.4% from 7,571 in 2014 to 6,030 in 2015. See Figure 9 and Table 3
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Large (250+ persons)
SME (<250 persons)
2013
4628
86494
2014
7571
92289
2015
6030
102690
Gross Value Added for SME enterprises rose by 9.6% to €5.6bn in 2015 from €5.1bn in the previous year
Large enterprises reported an increase in GVA, which rose by 17.1% from €479m in 2014 to €561m in 2015
GVA for all Construction enterprises in Ireland in 2015 totalled €6.2bn. See Figure 10 and Table 3
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Large (250+ persons)
SME (<250 persons)
2013
0.162
4.053
2014
0.479
5.141
2015
0.561
5.637
Irish enterprises employed more in SMEs while Foreign owned enterprises employed more in Large enterprises in 2015
Over 70% of employment in Irish owned industrial enterprises was in SMEs
The reverse is true of foreign owned industrial enterprises, where 78.3% of all persons engaged were employed in Large enterprises.
Employment in Irish owned Services and Distribution enterprises was also concentrated in SMEs with small and medium sized enterprises responsible for 81.1% of all persons engaged
Two-thirds, 67.4% of employment in foreign owned Services and Distribution enterprises was in Large enterprises. See Figure 11
normal
Large (250+ persons)
SME (<250 persons)
Industry - Irish
29.9
70.1
Industry - Foreign
78.3
21.7
Building and Construction - Irish
4.9
95.1
Building and Construction - Foreign*
0
0
Services and Distribution - Irish
18.9
81.1
Services and Distribution - Foreign
67.4
32.6
Large Industrial enterprises generated 91.6% of GVA in foreign owned enterprises
Irish owned enterprises were more evenly split with 60.1% of GVA coming from SMEs and 39.9% generated by Large Industrial enterprises
In the Construction sector, Irish owned SMEs accounted for 92.7% of GVA with the remaining 7.3% from Large enterprises
Most GVA, 78.7% in Irish owned Services and Distribution enterprises came from SMEs, while foreign owned enterprises in these sectors generated 65.7% of their GVA from Large enterprises. See Figure 12
The background notes and detailed methodology for the three individual surveys used to compile the The Structural Business Statistics release can be found as follows:
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