Labour productivity, which is defined as gross value added for each hour worked, stood at €105.8 per hour in Ireland in 2023. Labour productivity in sectors dominated by domestically-owned companies was €61.1 per hour, while in sectors dominated by foreign-owned companies, it was €388.9 per hour.
Ireland's labour productivity was over double the EU average of €41.9 per hour, but this gap narrows significantly to a difference of €19.2 per hour when excluding Foreign dominated sectors from Ireland's results.
The sectors of the Irish economy with the highest labour productivity in 2023 were Foreign-owned Manufacturing (€439.9 per hour), Information & Communication (€293.5 per hour), and Electricity, Gas, Steam & Air Conditioning Supply (€224.8 per hour).
In 2023, the Foreign sector of the Irish economy saw labour productivity decrease by 15.9%, driven by Foreign Manufacturing, which saw labour productivity fall by 29.0%.
Labour productivity grew in the Domestic sector by 3.8% in 2023. Electricity, Gas, Steam & Air Conditioning Supply, which rose by 61.5% in 2023, had the fastest growth in labour productivity in the Domestic sector.
Over half of Domestic sector gross value added was attributed to labour in 2023, while this share stood at 10.2% for the Foreign sector.
Capital assets for the Domestic sector stood at €304,800 per employee in 2023. It was over five times greater in the Foreign sector compared with the Domestic sector, with a value of €1.5m of capital assets per employee in 2023. This gap has been declining since 2020.
Information on the hours worked in secondary jobs is included with hours worked in primary jobs in this release for the first time.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (01 April 2025) published Productivity in Ireland 2023.
Commenting on the release, Doireann O'Brien, Statistician in the National Accounts Analysis and Globalisation Division, said: "This release presents statistics on productivity and the sources of economic growth in the Irish economy in 2023 for both the Domestic and the Foreign sectors.
Major Developments in the Domestic and Foreign Sectors
For the total economy, overall labour productivity declined by 7.5% in 2023, driven by a fall in gross value added (-5.8%) and a rise in hours worked (+1.7%). Domestic labour productivity increased by 3.8%, as gross value added (+5.8%) grew faster than hours worked (+2.0%). This growth was largely driven by the Financial & Insurance and Real Estate sectors. In contrast, labour productivity for the Foreign sector fell by 15.9%, with this driven primarily by a decrease in gross value added (-16.1%) as well as a marginal drop in hours worked in the sector (-0.2%). This fall in the Foreign sector was driven by Foreign Manufacturing, which saw labour productivity decline by 29.0% in 2023.
In 2023, Domestic unit labour costs rose by 3.9%, indicating that the cost of labour increased relative to labour productivity. Unit labour costs grew by 25.8% in the Foreign sector.
Capital assets per employee were €458,000 in 2023, a fall of 4.3% compared with 2022. Capital assets for the Domestic sector stood at €304,800 per employee while this figure was significantly higher at €1.5m per employee in the Foreign sector in 2023. Real Estate, Administrative & Support Services (which includes aircraft leasing activities) and Foreign Manufacturing were the sectors with the highest levels of capital assets per employee in 2023.
International Comparisons
The release also shows how Ireland and its Domestic and Foreign sectors compared with EU peers in 2023. Driven by the performance of multinationals, Ireland had the highest labour productivity (€105.8 per hour) compared with other EU member states, while the Domestic sector (€61.1 per hour) was considerably closer to the EU average (€41.9 per hour). The high performing sectors were Manufacturing (€282.9 per hour) and Information & Communications (€293.5 per hour), both of which saw labour productivity levels far higher than their respective EU averages.
Ireland exhibited the largest decrease in labour productivity (-7.5%) of the EU member states in 2023. On average, across the EU, labour productivity fell by 0.2%. When looking at growth in labour productivity for the Foreign and Domestic sectors of Ireland separately, different pictures emerge. Labour productivity for foreign sector (-15.9%) exhibited the largest decrease compared with EU member states. In contrast, labour productivity in the Domestic sector grew by 3.8%, which constituted the fastest growth rate among EU member states in 2023.
More than half (53.5%) of Ireland's Domestic sector gross value added was attributed to labour in 2023, just above the EU average of 52.0%. In contrast, Ireland's total economy had the lowest labour share in the EU (32%), with this result driven strongly by the capital-intensive Foreign sector which reported a labour share of 10.2% in 2023.”