Multinationals: An Irish Perspective

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Multinationals play an important role in the economies of many countries. Increasingly, multinationals create a physical presence in several countries around the world in order to maximise their global earnings.

This chapter presents statistics on the activities of the affiliates of Irish multinationals abroad and the contribution made by the affiliates of Foreign multinationals in Ireland. See Tables 7.1 and 7.2 at the end of this section for more detail on the data in the graphs.

Key statistics

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Figure 7.1 Irish MNEs abroad and foreign MNEs in Ireland, 2014

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In 2014, Irish multinationals employed almost 308,000 persons in Foreign affiliates. These affiliates generated Turnover of €99.3 billion.
By contrast, Foreign multinationals employed just over 316,300 persons in affiliates in Ireland. These affiliates generated Turnover of €242.8 billion.

Irish-owned Multinationals abroad

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The Distribution and Manufacturing sectors each accounted for around 43% of employment in Irish affilliates abroad in 2014.
Employment in Services represented around 13% of employment abroad in Irish affiliates, with negligible employment levels in other sectors.

X-axis label	Persons engaged
Construction (F)	0.3
Other industrial (B,D,E)	1.4
Services (inc. Finance)	12.9
Manufacturing (C)	42.5
Distribution (G)	42.9

Most Turnover for Irish affiliates abroad came from the Distribution sector, at 35.1% of the total and Services at 32.9%.
The Manufacturing sector accounted for a significant share of total Turnover, at 29.9%, of Irish affiliates abroad.

X-axis label	Turnover
Construction (F)	0.7
Other Industrial (B,D,E)	1.4
Manufacturing (C)	29.9
Services (incl. Finance)	32.9
Distribution (G)	35.1

	Turnover
Construction	745
Other Industrial	316
Services (incl. Finance)	824.2
Distribution	263.9
Manufacturing	226.9
All sectors	322.5

Irish affiliates abroad in the Services sector recorded the highest turnover per person engaged at €824,200.
The Manufacturing sector reported the lowest turnover per person engaged for Irish affiliates abroad at €226,900.

	Persons engaged
United Kingdom	86180
United States	100252
Germany	14576
Netherlands	12290
France	10605
Poland	5625
Belgium	4869
Spain	2840
Canada	4632
Italy	3332
Other countries	62798

	Turnover
United Kingdom	37.6
United States	27.2
Netherlands	3.8
Germany	4.5
France	2.5
Spain	1.2
Austria	1.2
Belgium	1.3
Poland	0.9
Australia	2.6
Other countries	16.7

The United Kingdom and the United States dominated employment and Turnover as locations for Irish-owned affiliates abroad, when combined they represented between 60-65% of total employment and Turnover.
Of the total of 308,000 persons engaged in Irish affiliates abroad, over 100,000 were in the United States affiliates which had a Turnover of €27.2bn.
The United Kingdom based Irish affiliates employed almost 86,200 people and generated €37.6bn in Turnover.
Germany, the Netherlands and France also made a significant contribution to the total Turnover and employment of Irish-owned affiliates.

X-axis label	%
Irish	0.7
Dutch	4.8
Italian	6.7
Other	18.8
German	18.3
French	22.3
British	28.3

There were 115,000 persons employed in Irish-owned affiliates outside the EU in 2013, compared to almost 146,700 in foreign affiliates within the EU.
Irish-owned enterprises employed 0.7% of the 15.4 million persons engaged in European-owned affiliates outside the EU.
British-owned enterprises generated 28.3% of all employment outside the EU by EU-owned multinationals.
French and German owned enterprises accounted for 22.3% and 18.3% respectively, of employment by EU multinationals outside the EU.

	Nationality
Irish	68.9
British	66.7
French	59.4
German	42
Italian	38
	0
EU28 average	55.9

Services dominated employment in European controlled affiliates outside the EU, with 55.9% of total employment in 2013.
In Irish controlled affiliates outside the EU, 68.9% of total employment was in Services.

7.1 Irish-owned foreign affiliate statistics, persons engaged and turnover, 2014

Foreign-owned Multinationals in Ireland

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The Financial and Insurance sector is excluded from this section. Accordingly, all the measures below relate to the non-financial business economy only (which encompasses the broad sectors of Industry, Services, Distribution & Construction).

	2008	2014
Number of enterprises	1.377999430938	1.51337132133276
Persons engaged	20.5781418131087	24.3379684773275
Turnover	41.5523823633481	52.7215205636528
GVA	43.1408306287127	52.0655663126206

Foreign-owned enterprises in 2014, accounted for 52.7% of total Turnover and 52.1% of total GVA in the Irish non-financial business economy.
Despite such large contributions to GVA and Turnover, Foreign-owned enterprises accounted for only 1.5% of the total Irish non-financial business economy enterprises in 2014.
Out of an overall total of 249,377 enterprises, 3,774 Foreign-owned enterprises accounted for 24.3% of persons engaged in the Irish non-financial business economy in 2014.
In 2014, the contribution of Foreign-owned enterprises to the Irish business economy had risen in the previous few years, from 43.1% of total GVA in 2008 to 52.1%.

	2008	2014
Number of enterprises	3.39078658727672	3.55822270715888
Persons engaged	38.882156167772	39.2101450996224
Turnover	67.2960187142869	72.9178123487578
GVA	69.1846200419191	72.5568414991413

The Industry sector in particular, was dominated by Foreign-owned enterprises in 2014, with 72.9% of total Turnover and 72.6% of total GVA.
The 587 Foreign-owned enterprises in Industry, 3.6% of the Industry total, accounted for 39.2% or 82,555 of the persons engaged in this sector.

	2008	2014
Number of enterprises	3.39695445462689	3.30188679245283
Persons engaged	42.2483454605287	42.1164840024004
Turnover	72.5449553630461	76.6558129084763
GVA	75.76546137562	79.6350648715962

Manufacturing was dominated by the 483 Foreign-owned enterprises operating here and accounted for 80,007 persons engaged and 79.6% of total Manufacturing GVA in 2014.

	2008	2014
Number of enterprises	2.03962451875243	2.18334867815336
Persons engaged	20.8722417097796	25.6101832776237
Turnover	30.4845930180977	38.5997120651548
GVA	33.6819216426245	40.6535992033869

For the Distribution sector, 996 Foreign-owned enterprises employed 86,272 persons and contributed 40.7% of total GVA.

	2008	2014
Number of enterprises	1.44159932999364	1.45947839014245
Persons engaged	18.6422468691094	21.6401860921417
Turnover	40.9389282569093	52.3404857239385
GVA	33.3873096106332	44.7896553579889

For Services 2,042 Foreign-owned enterprises employed 141,173 persons and accounted for 44.8% of GVA in 2014.

There was a marked rise in the GVA contribution from Foreign-owned enterprises to the Services sector, rising from 33.4% of total GVA in 2008 to 44.8% in 2014.

	Gross Value Added
Hungary	52.6560460058995
Ireland	52.0655663126206
Luxembourg	47.0446343165298
Romania	43.8998061214077
Slovakia	43.5938631426502
Czech Republic	42.3345809838036
Bulgaria	33.0467225809047
Latvia	31.0616951034531
Netherlands	27.299669154386
Norway	27.128211102697
Lithuania	26.4974995878441
Estonia	26.417631463503
Slovenia	24.0906544271338
EU28 (2013)	23.9330149620067
Malta	22.6041691654473
Portugal	22.3957087456055
Germany	21.8728249128496
Denmark	21.2845073517582
Bosnia and Herzegovina	16.8289208120622
France	16.0079238635722
Italy	14.7151796387447
Greece	12.010893047556

Ireland rated highly in Gross Value Added contributions from Foreign-owned enterprises to the overall non-financial business economy in 2014, at 52.1% of total GVA. This is in comparison to an EU average of 23.9% in 2013.

Other high ranking countries for the impact of Foreign-owned enterprises included Hungary (52.7%) and Luxembourg (47.0%). Larger economies like Germany (21.9%) and France (16.0%) had lower shares.

7.2 Structural business statistics by sector and nationality of ownership, 2014

Table 7.1 Irish-owned foreign affiliate statistics, persons engaged and turnover, 2014
	Number of persons engaged			Turnover €m
	Affiliates inside the EU	Affiliates outside the EU	Total	Affiliates inside the EU	Affiliates outside the EU	Total
Manufacturing	52,332	78,640	130,972	13,364	16,349	29,713
Other industrial	(c)	(c)	4,262	(c)	(c)	1,347
Construction	(c)	(c)	1,000	(c)	(c)	745
Services (incl. Distribution)	96,184	75,581	171,765	42,304	25,231	67,535
Services (incl. Fin)¹	26,305	13,333	39,638	22,850	9,821	32,671
Distribution	69,879	62,248	132,127	19,454	15,410	34,864
All sectors	151,638	156,361	307,999	57,393	41,947	99,340
Source: CSO Outward Foreign Affiliates Survey
¹ Services covers NACE Rev. 2 H to S excluding O.

Table 7.2 Structural business statistics by sector and nationality of ownership, 2014
	Irish-owned	Foreign-owned affiliates			All enterprises
		Owned by EU multinationals	Owned by non-EU multinationals	Total
Number of enterpises
Industry¹	15,910	321	266	587	16,497
of which; Manufacturing	14,145	240	243	483	14,628
Construction	47,200	99	50	149	47,349
Distribution	44,622	565	431	996	45,618
Services (excl. Financials)	137,871	943	1,099	2,042	139,913
All sectors	245,603	1,928	1,846	3,774	249,377
Number of persons engaged
Industry¹	127,990	24,102	58,453	82,555	210,545
of which; Manufacturing	109,959	22,187	57,820	80,007	189,966
Construction	93,555	2,489	3,816	6,305	99,860
Distribution	250,594	53,333	32,939	86,272	336,866
Services (excl. Financials)	511,192	47,835	93,338	141,173	652,365
All sectors	983,331	127,759	188,546	316,305	1,299,636
Turnover (€millions)
Industry¹	34,494	15,139	77,734	92,873	127,366
of which; Manufacturing	27,347	13,617	76,184	89,801	117,149
Construction	12,929	572	707	1,279	14,208
Distribution	81,756	18,429	32,968	51,397	133,153
Services (excl. Financials)	88,565	13,661	83,602	97,263	185,828
All sectors	217,744	47,801	195,010	242,812	460,555
GVA (€millions)
Industry¹	11,349	4,041	25,964	30,005	41,353
of which; Manufacturing	7,510	3,717	25,652	29,369	36,880
Construction	5,074	212	313	525	5,599
Distribution	10,712	2,623	4,714	7,338	18,049
Services (excl. Financials)	30,534	4,583	20,187	24,771	55,305
All sectors	57,668	11,460	51,179	62,638	120,307
Source: CSO Structural Business surveys and Business Demography data.
¹Industry covers NACE Rev.2 (05-39) of which Manufacturing (10-33), Construction (41-43), Distribution (45-47) and Services covers NACE Rev. 2 H to N (excluding K) and R92, R93, S95, S96.

Business In Ireland 2014