Labour productivity, defined as gross value added per hour worked, stood at €125.3 per hour in Ireland in 2025. Labour productivity was €65.8 per hour in the Domestic sector, compared with €507.3 per hour in sectors dominated by foreign-owned companies.
The Foreign-dominated Manufacturing sector recorded the highest labour productivity in 2025 at €524.8 per hour, while labour productivity in the Information & Communication sector stood at €415.9 per hour.
Labour productivity across the Total Economy increased by 6.1% in 2025, as growth in gross value added (7.8%) outpaced growth in hours worked (1.6%). This increase was driven by the Foreign-dominated sector, which saw labour productivity rise by 14.2% in 2025 compared with 2024.
Labour productivity in the Domestic sector decreased by 0.8% in 2025. This reflected hours worked growing by 2.0% while gross value added increased by 1.2%. The decline in Domestic labour productivity was driven most strongly by the Financial & Insurance Activities sector, where labour productivity decreased by 7.1% in 2025.
Capital assets per employee in the Domestic sector stood at €353,500 in 2025. This was more than four times higher in the Foreign-dominated sector, at €1.4m per employee. Capital assets per employee in the Foreign-dominated sector have declined consistently since 2020, when they stood at €2.4m.
Using a new approach to estimate labour productivity by company-level ownership, labour productivity was estimated at €323.2 per hour for foreign-owned companies in Ireland in 2025, compared with €59.5 per hour for Irish-owned companies.
In 2025, 43.6% of foreign-owned companies reported using AI technologies, which was nearly 2.7 times higher than the uptake among Irish-owned companies, at 16.3%.
In addition to Labour Productivity for the total Real Estate sector, Labour Productivity for Real Estate activities excluding imputed rents of owner-occupied dwellings is provided in this publication for the first time.
For this analysis, the term Foreign sector refers to those sectors dominated by Foreign-Owned Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). These are sectors where Foreign-Owned MNE turnover on average exceeds 85% of the sector total. The term Domestic sector is used to refer to all other sectors not classified as Foreign.
It should be noted that the Foreign and Domestic classifications in this release also differ slightly from those used elsewhere in the CSO’s National Accounts. Rental & Leasing Services (NACE 77) is classified as Foreign in this release due to the concentration of foreign-owned capital in the sector.
All growth rates presented in this release are log growth rates for presentational purposes.
Information on the hours worked in this release includes both hours worked in primary and secondary jobs in the economy.
The CSO would like to acknowledge the work of Dylan Murphy, who worked with the National Accounts team on this project as part of the CSO’s Graduate Programme. We wish to extend our appreciation and thanks to him for contributing to the analysis and production of this release.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (29 September 2026) published Productivity in Ireland 2024-2025.
Commenting on the release, Doireann O'Brien, Statistician in the National Accounts Analysis and Globalisation Division, said: "This release presents the latest annual statistics on labour productivity and the sources of economic growth in the Irish economy.
Major Developments in the Domestic and Foreign Sectors
For the total economy, overall labour productivity increased by 6.1% in 2025, as gross value added (+7.8%) grew faster than hours worked (+1.6%). This was driven by the foreign-dominated sector, where labour productivity rose by 14.2%. In contrast, Labour productivity in Domestic sectors decreased by 0.8%, as gross value added (+1.2%) grew more slowly than hours worked (+2.0%). This decline in Domestic labour productivity was driven primarily by the Financial & Insurance Activities sector, where labour productivity decreased by 7.1%.
In 2025, unit labour costs rose by 4.1% in Domestic sectors, indicating that the cost of labour increased relative to labour productivity. Unit labour costs decreased by 10.6% in the Foreign sector.
Capital assets per employee across the total economy were €486,000 in 2025, a fall of 1.0% compared with 2024. Capital assets for the Domestic sector stood at €353,500 per employee. This figure was significantly higher at €1.4m per employee in the Foreign sector in 2025. Real Estate and Administrative & Support Services (which includes aircraft leasing activities) were the sectors with the highest levels of capital assets per employee in 2025.
New Estimates of Labour Productivity by Ownership and Size
To provide additional insights, this release includes new estimates of labour productivity for Foreign and Domestic-owned companies. To complement the analysis identifying sectors dominated by foreign activity, this approach estimates within-sector ownership breakdowns using micro-data.
Using this approach, labour productivity was estimated at €323.2 per hour for foreign-owned companies in Ireland in 2025, compared with €59.5 per hour for Irish-owned companies. In the Information & Communication sector, labour productivity among foreign-owned companies was estimated at €625.2 per hour, compared with €39.9 per hour for Irish-owned companies. In Manufacturing, labour productivity among foreign-owned companies was estimated at €577.4 per hour, compared with €43.6 per hour for Irish-owned companies.
Additionally, this release contains new estimates of labour productivity broken down by company size classification for the Irish Manufacturing sector. Labour productivity of large foreign-owned manufacturing companies in Ireland was estimated at €673.2 per hour in 2025, compared with €90.1 per hour for large Irish-owned manufacturing companies. Small foreign-owned manufacturing companies were estimated to have labour productivity at €98.9 per hour, higher than Irish-owned manufacturing companies of all size classifications.
International Comparisons
This release also shows how Ireland compared with EU peers using the latest available data for 2024. Driven by the performance of multinationals, Ireland had the highest labour productivity (€117.8 per hour) compared with other EU member states in 2024, while the Domestic sector (€66.3 per hour) was considerably closer to the EU average (€45.9 per hour). On average, across the EU, labour productivity grew by 0.2% in 2024, compared with growth of 1.8% in Ireland.”