This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
Employments in Irish-owned enterprises accounted for 74.9% of total employments and 65.2% of total earnings in 2023, while employments in US-owned enterprises accounted for 9.0% of total employments and 17.1% of total earnings.
EU-owned (excluding Irish-owned) enterprises accounted for 5.2% of total employments and 6.1% of earnings, while UK-owned enterprises accounted for a further 4.9% of employments and 4.7% of earnings.
Irish-owned enterprises accounted for the largest proportion of employments in all economic sectors, with the exception of Information & Communication, where employments in US-owned enterprises accounted for more than two in five employments (43.2%).
In 2023, the economic sectors with the largest proportion of earnings recorded among employments in Irish-owned enterprises were the Accommodation & Food Services (82.8%) and Transportation & Storage (72.3%) sectors.
US-owned enterprises accounted for more than half the total earnings recorded in Information & Communication (59.1%) and almost one quarter of earnings in Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities (24.1%).
The Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS) annual dataset is restricted to employees only, as it is based primariliy on Revenue's employee tax data; "PAYE Modernisation" (PMOD).
Please note the difference between the terms employees and employments, and the different methodology used to determine these terms. It is possible for an employee to have multiple employments in a given reference period.
Nationalities of enterprise ownership accounting for the largest proportions of total employments were listed individually in this analysis, while other nationalities of enterprise ownership, as well as those which could not be determined, were included in the Other category.
Employments in Irish-owned enterprises accounted for almost three-quarters (74.9%) of total employments in 2023 and accounted for the largest proportion (65.2%) of total earnings recorded. A further 9.0% of employments were recorded among US-owned enterprises and 4.9% among UK-owned enterprises. Employments in US-owned enterprises accounted for almost one-fifth (17.1%) of total earnings in 2023, compared with UK-owned enterprises which made up a further 4.7% of total earnings (See Table 1).
Although included in the overall analysis, certain economic sectors (Public Administration & Defence, Education, Human Health & Social Work and Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services) were excluded from the sectoral analysis presented below as they consisted largely of public sector and/or non-market enterprises (See Tables 2a and 2b).
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (10 April 2025) published the Proportion of Employments and Earnings by Irish and Foreign Owned Enterprises for 2023. This is a new release which aims to provide insight on the proportion of total employments and earnings in terms of Irish and foreign-owned enterprises. Analysis is based on the CSO’s Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS) and the CSO’s Central Business Register (CBR). This release uses the most recently available data and is subject to revision in future iterations.
Commenting on the release, Dr Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Labour Market & Earnings Division of the CSO, said: “This release aims to provide insightful analysis on the proportion of total employments and earnings recorded in Ireland in terms of domestic and foreign-owned enterprises in 2023. Nationalities of enterprise ownership accounting for the largest proportions of total employments were listed individually in this analysis, while other nationalities of enterprise ownership, as well as those which could not be determined, were included in the Other category.
Employments
Employments in Irish-owned enterprises accounted for almost three quarters (74.9%) of total employments in 2023, while a further 9.0% of employments were recorded among US-owned enterprises. EU-owned (excluding Irish-owned) enterprises accounted for 5.2% of employments and 4.9% were among UK-owned enterprises. Although included in the overall analysis, certain economic sectors (Public Administration & Defence, Education, Human Health & Social Work and Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services) were excluded from the sectoral analysis presented below (see Tables 2a and 2b) as they consisted largely of public sector and/or non-market enterprises. The reliance on foreign-owned enterprises in terms of the proportion of total employments varied by economic sector. Irish-owned enterprises accounted for the largest proportion of employments in all economic sectors, with the exception of Information & Communication. Employments in US-owned enterprises represented more than two-fifths of employments in the Information & Communication sector (43.2%) and almost one-fifth of employments in Industry & Construction (19.0%).
Earnings
In terms of earnings, employments in Irish-owned enterprises accounted for the largest proportion of total earnings in 2023, at 65.2%, with a further 17.1% made up of employments in US-owned enterprises. Employments among Irish-owned enterprises accounted for 82.8% of earnings recorded in Accommodation & Food Services and 67.0% of earnings in Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities in 2023. In comparison, US-owned enterprises accounted for more than half the total earnings recorded in Information & Communication (59.1%) and almost one-quarter of earnings (24.1%) in the Financial, Insurance & Real Estate Activities sector.”