By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) -Employment at foreign multinational companies in Ireland fell by 0.3% in the year to end-October in the first annual decline since 2009 as tech layoffs offset jobs growth in every other sector, the state investment agency said on Friday.
Ireland is hugely reliant on foreign multinationals, which have almost doubled their workforce in the last decade to make up around 11% of the entire labour market.
That number fell to 300,583 from 301,475 in the year to end-October after job losses more than doubled year-on-year to almost 18,000.
Those employed in the information and communications services sector fell by 2.9% after a number of big employers including Meta, Accenture (NYSE:ACN) and Stripe laid off Irish staff as part of global cutbacks from late last year.
Job growth was recorded in all other sectors and the head of IDA Ireland, the investment agency, said he expected to return to net jobs growth, noting that many of the tech companies that cut jobs are "now turning to growth."
"We will be looking to future net gains. We've gone through a very turbulent 14, 15 months with the global technology reset. If we continue on the trajectory we're on, that will inevitably lead to future growth," Michael Lohan told a news conference.
Lohan added that while investment in Ireland continued to face domestic and global challenges, he was optimistic about 2024 with a "reasonably strong" pipeline of potential job announcements.
Despite the tech cuts, the IDA still won slightly more new investments in the last 12 months than a year earlier, enabling the creation of almost 19,000 jobs in 2023 and future years. Close to 17,000 jobs were added in the 12 months to October.
That was down sharply on the record 32,426 added in 2022 and was the lowest annual total in almost a decade.