Business in Ireland 2023 – Environmental, Social, Governance of Enterprises

Introduction

Enterprises have an important societal function to play - from providing employment, to the quality of that employment. This chapter explores the contribution that enterprises make in a non-financial sense – how many people are working, how much people earn, are they members of trade unions, the extent of any gender pay differences. In this chapter, we learn that the number of persons employed in Ireland continues to increase. Earnings also continue to rise, but the proportion of men in the top 10% of earnings is higher than that of women for all sectors of the economy. When we look at how representative board of managements are of both sexes, we see that just over 30% of senior executives are female. This chapter also looks at business related crime and we learn that the proportion of employees who are members of a trade union continues to decline.

The number of persons in employment increased by 416,000 from Q4 2018 to Q4 2023

Using standard International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria, an estimated 2,706,400 persons were in employment in Q4 2023, up 18.2% (416,000) from 2,290,400 in Q4 2018. See Figure 3.1 and Table 3.1.

The economic sectors that saw the largest growth from Q4 2018 to Q4 2023 are:

• Information and Communications which increased by 51,900 or 44.4%
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities by 50,300 or 36.9%
• Public Administration and Defence by 34,800 or 32.2%

The only sector to show a decrease over the period is the:

• Administrative and Support Service sector which decreased by 1,300 or -1.2%

Average weekly earnings increased by 23% between Q4 2018 and Q4 2023

Average weekly earnings were €928.00 in Q4 2023, an increase of 23% when compared with €756 in Q4 2018, according to preliminary estimates of the Earnings and Labour Costs quarterly release.

The largest percentage increase over the period Q4 2018 to Q4 2023 in average weekly earnings was 35% in the Information and Communication sector, rising from €1,168.50 to €1,581.02. The second largest percentage increase was 30.2% in the Arts, Entertainment, Recreation and Other Service Activities sector, rising from €496.84 to €646.48. The smallest increase over the period Q4 2018 to Q5 2023 was in the Transport and Storage sector which showed an increase of just 5.8% from €844.46 to €893.14.

In Q4 2023 the 3 sectors with the highest average weekly earnings were all in the services sector:

• Information and Communication - €1,581.02
• Financial, Insurance and Real Estate - €1,313.57
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities - €1,144.02

In Q4 2023 the 3 sectors with the lowest average weekly earnings were:

• Accommodation and Food Services - €438.66
• Arts, Entertainment, Recreation and Other Service Activities - €646.98
• Wholesale and Retail Trade; Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles - €682.17

See Figure 3.2 and Table 3.2.

1n 2023, 69.8% of those with employment in the top 10% of earnings were Male and 30.2% were female

In 2023, gender representation across total employments was relatively equal; 50.9% of total employments were represented by males while 49.1% were represented by females. See Table 3.3 (a).

There was greater disparity in gender representation among high earners. Among employments with earnings in the top 10%, males accounted for 69.8% of those employees while females accounted for 30.2%. See Figure 3.3.

Table 3.3 (b) reflects the gender representation across each economic sector and also for the top 10% of earnings. In 2023, males represented a higher proportion of the total employments in eight of the 13 economic sectors compared with females, however they accounted for the majority of the top 10% of earnings across all sectors.

In this male dominated Construction sector, males accounted for 85.9% of total employments, while the remaining 14.1% of employments were held by females. Among the top 10% of earners employed in this sector, most were males (93.3%), compared with females (6.7%) In contrast, females represented 76.6% of the total employments in the Human Health & Social Work sector, while accounting for 47.4% of employments within the top 10% of earnings. Figure 3.3 presents the gender breakdown within the top 10% of earnings for each sector in 2023.

The "Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities" sector had the highest proportion of female senior executives in 2023 at 43.5%

The Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Service Activities sector (which includes activities of membership organisations, repair of personal and household goods, and other personal services) at 43.5% had the highest proportion of female senior executives in 2023. This was followed by Accommodation and Food Service Activities (36.8%) and Financial and Insurance (33.9%). Although the Construction sector had the lowest level of female representation in senior executive roles in 2023 at 13.4%, it has increased from 9.5% in 2021. See Figure 3.4 and Table 3.4.

Business related crime increased between 2019 and 2023

The number of certain business related crimes has fluctuated between 2019 and 2023 and stood at 1,556 instances in 2023, up from 1,367 instances in 2019. When we look at the selected categories, we can see that the instances of money laundering and investment fraud increased over the period, while the instances of forgery, employee fraud and investment fraud decreased. See Figure 3.5 and Table 3.5.

In Q2 2023, 22% of employees were members of a trade union

In Q2 2023, 22% of employees were members of a trade union, this reflected a reduction from the recent peak in 2020, when 27% of employees were members of a trade union. In Q2 2023, 24% of those employed in the Services sector were members of a trade union and 17% of those employed in Industry were members of a trade union. See Figure 3.6 and Table 3.6.