Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 October 2023
107. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the extent to which diversification throughout the manufacturing and services sectors has resulted in increased employment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44579/23]
View answerAccording to the latest available national employment figures, from the Central Statistics Office’s Labour Force Survey, employment levels reached 2.63 million in Q2 2023 on a seasonally adjusted basis. We now have more people employed in our country than ever before, while the monthly unemployment rate for September 2023 stood at just 4.2%. The rate of employment growth in the aftermath of the pandemic has been remarkable. In the past year alone, employment has grown by 87,400 jobs – an increase of 3.4%. This is on top of an increase of 202,300 jobs (an increase of 8.6%) between Q2 2021 and Q2 2022.
This additional employment has been spread across several sectors, with employment increasing in 12 out of 14 sectors in the year to Q2 2023. The largest percentage annual increases in employment in the past year were recorded in the Public Administration and Defence (+11.2%), Human Health and Social Work (+5.6%) and Professional, Technical and Scientific Activities sectors (+5.3%).
These recent labour market dynamics reflect longer-term trends, with Ireland’s labour market experiencing significant sectoral reallocation over the past decade. This diversification of our enterprise base is a result of concerted government action in recent years. In 2019 Future Jobs Ireland set the ambition of diversifying our enterprise to ensure that the Irish economy is more resilient and adaptable. Key deliverables of the plan included strengthening the capacity of Local Enterprise Offices, to provide a comprehensive suite of supports for indigenous Irish businesses and increasing the take-up of supports among SMEs to improve competitiveness and enhance innovation.
Since the plan was launched in March 2019, there is evidence of a continuing structural change in agency-assisted companies towards Services sectors, particularly in the foreign-owned sector. According to the Annual Employment Survey 2022, full-time employment in all Industrial sector companies increased to 255,562 in 2022, up from 242,763 in 2021 (a rise of 12,499 or 5.1%), while Services employment increased to 229,716 in 2022, up from 210,786 in 2021 (a rise of 18,930 or 9.0%). In the Industrial sector, Irish-owned companies accounted for 49.9% of full-time employment in 2022, while in the Services sector, this share was 27.7%.
The White Paper on Enterprise, 2022-2030, published in December 2022, reaffirms Government commitments to strengthening the Irish-owned enterprise base while continuing to advance Ireland’s Foreign Direct Investment and trade value proposition. Amongst the targets included in the White Paper are a 50% increase in the number of large Irish exporting companies by 2030; 2,000 additional Irish-owned exporters by 2030; and over two-thirds of Enterprise Ireland assisted new jobs between 2022 and 2024 to be created outside of Dublin.
A White Paper Implementation Plan was published in May 2023, outlining the concrete steps required to deliver on these ambitions. Manufacturing and services sector related actions within this Plan include establishing four new digital innovation hubs; developing a pipeline of digitalisation projects for Ireland’s manufacturing sector through Digital Manufacturing Ireland; launching a pilot of extended financial assistance to SMEs in the manufacturing and international traded sectors to become export-ready; and supporting 300 significant R&D projects between 2022 and 2024 to drive the competitiveness of Irish companies in international markets.
