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Business in Ireland 2016

Overview

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Business in Ireland is an annual thematic e-publication released by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland. This publication outlines the key statistics for the Irish business economy in 2016.

Business Demography data (largely based on administrative data from the Revenue Commissioners) are used to analyse the number of enterprises and employment across the five sectors of Industry, Construction, Distribution, Services and Financial & Insurance. This data is combined with the Structural Business surveys, which are run annually by CSO.

This publication provides answers to many key policy questions, such as:

♦ the impact of SMEs on the Irish business economy

♦ the impact of foreign owned enterprises

♦ how concentrated is business economy value add creation in Ireland? 

♦ typical survival rates for new enterprises

Acknowledgement

The CSO would like to acknowledge and thank the many enterprises who completed their enterprise survey questionnaires. Without this extensive cooperation, this publication and a range of other important statistics would not be available. The CSO also wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the Revenue Commissioners, as the information provided by Revenue to the CSO is of critical importance in compiling these necessary outputs. All such administrative data provided is only used for statistical purposes, and we think you will see the fruits of this data sharing in this very informative publication.

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SMEs (<250)Large (250+)
Active enterprises99.80.2
Persons engaged68.431.6
Turnover50.249.8
GVA41.458.6
  • Large enterprises (250+ employees) employed almost one third (32%) of all persons engaged in 2016 and accounted for only 0.2% of total number of enterprises
  • SMEs accounted for 99.8% of total number of enterprises in 2016 and over 68% of all persons engaged
  • SMEs generated 50.2% of total Turnover in the business economy and over 41% of Gross Value Added was attributed to these enterprises
DeathsBirths
20111518214343
20121620215079
20131828613825
20141533816256
20151935618102
201619249
  • The total number of enterprises that ceased trading during 2015 was 19,356, an increase of over 26% compared to 2014 levels
  • Enterprise deaths increased by 27.5% in the period 2011 to 2015
  • In 2016, births showed an annual increase of over 6% to 19,249
  • The number of new births increased by 34.2% in 2016 when compared to 2011
  • The lowest number of enterprise births between 2011 and 2016 occured in 2013 when 13,825 enterprises were established
Irish-ownedAll enterprises
Micro <107798584324
Small 10-495359669415
Medium 50-2495673370970
Large 250+80553270188
00
All size classes67771131105
  • Gross Value Added per person engaged averaged €131,105 for all enterprises in the Irish non-financial business economy in 2016, while GVA in Irish-owned enterprises averaged €67,771
  • Small enterprises reported GVA per person in 2016 of €69,415, while Medium enterprises reported GVA per person of €70,970 
  • GVA per person for Large Irish-owned enterprises was just over €80,500 but increased to €270,188 when foreign-owned Large enterprises were included
Top 50 by employmentTop 50 by GVA
Gross operating surplus41.769.2
GVA3351.1
Turnover23.535.2
  • Industry stands out in terms of its reliance upon a small number of high value added enterprises. The 50 largest enterprises in Industry by GVA accounted for 70.1% of total Turnover, 84.7% of total GVA and 93.1% of Gross Operating Surplus for the sector.  See Table 1.1
  • The 50 largest enterprises in the business economy by GVA accounted for 35.2% of total Turnover, 51.1% of total GVA and 69.2% of Gross Operating Surplus. These Top 50 enterprises only accounted for 6.9% of all persons engaged
  • The 50 largest enterprises in the business economy by employment accounted for 23.5% of total Turnover, 33.0% of total GVA and 41.7% of Gross Operating Surplus

Figure 1.5 Irish MNEs abroad and foreign MNEs in Ireland, 2016

Figure 1.5 Irish MNEs abroad and foreign MNEs in Ireland, 2016‌

‌

  • ‌In 2016, Irish multinationals employed over 856,000 persons in Foreign affiliates and generated Turnover of €192.6 billion
  • By contrast, Foreign multinationals employed just over 293,100 persons in affiliates in Ireland and generated Turnover of €345.0 billion
Gross Value Added
Ireland 58.7
Hungary52.5
Luxembourg47.6
Slovakia45.8
Romania43.9
Czech Republic41.8
Latvia33.5
Bulgaria32.7
Poland29.9
United Kingdom29.6
Lithuania28.2
Netherlands28.1
Sweden27.5
Belgium27.1
Austria26.9
Estonia26.4
Slovenia26.3
Croatia25.3
EU2824.5
Portugal24
Malta22.3
Spain21.9
Denmark21.5
Finland21.1
Germany20.1
France16.4
Italy15.2
Greece13.7
Cyprus12.8
  • Ireland had the highest rate in the EU28 for Gross Value Added contributions from Foreign-owned enterprises to the overall non-financial economy in 2015 (58.7% of total GVA)
  • This compares to the EU28 average of 24.5% for 2015
  • Other high-ranking countries included Hungary (52.5%), Luxembourg (47.6%) and Slovakia (45.8%) respectively
1.1 Main Indicators for all business sectors, 2016

The individual surveys used to compile this report can be accessed here

Go to next chapter >>>Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

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