Insights into Ireland’s
Jobs & Wages

What this data measures – and what it does not

An important clarification before the numbers: This CSO dataset does not classify workers by their nationality. It classifies jobs and wages by the nationality of the enterprise that employs them. “Foreign-owned employment” means jobs located in Ireland and held by workers (who may themselves be Irish) on the payroll of a foreign-owned firm. This distinction is critical when interpreting sectors like manufacturing, technology and financial services.

The economy-wide picture: Stability with a rising US wage footprint

Across all NACE B–S sectors (excluding agriculture) in 2023, the overall employment and earnings picture is both stable and structurally revealing.

Source: CSO, Employment and Earnings Insights by Nationality of Enterprise Ownership 2023–2024 (February 2025)

• Irish-owned enterprises provide approximately 74.9% of all jobs – a share that edged up from 74.0% in 2021, suggesting the indigenous sector is holding its labour market share despite strong growth in foreign-owned employment.
• Foreign-owned enterprises account for 25.1% of employment but 34.8% of total earnings – a gap of almost 10 percentage points that reflects the higher average wages paid by multinational firms, particularly in technology and pharmaceuticals.
• US-owned firms are the most extreme case: In 2023 they accounted for approximately 9.0% of all jobs but 17.1% of total earnings – a ratio of nearly 2:1. This gap widened from 2021 to 2023, indicating that US-owned firms are not just large employers but are pulling away from the wage average at an accelerating rate.
• UK ownership share is declining on both employment and earnings in almost every sector shown – a consistent pattern across the 2021–2023 period.

Source: CSO Employment and Earnings by Enterprise Ownership 2023

Ireland remains the employment base. The US footprint is increasingly the wage engine.

Sectors with large anchor employers

Ownership concentration – the share of a sector’s employment held by foreign firms – is a useful proxy for how “lumpy” a sector is. High foreign concentration typically signals a small number of very large employers dominating jobs and pay. Low foreign concentration typically signals a fragmented SME ecosystem where resilience depends on many businesses staying healthy rather than a few giants.

Source: CSO Proportion of Employments and Earnings by Irish and Foreign Owned Enterprises 2023

Information & Communication (NACE J)

The most concentrated sector by ownership: Approximately 68% of jobs and 79% of earnings are foreign-owned, led overwhelmingly by US-headquartered technology firms. A handful of global employers can and do move national wage aggregates in this sector. The 11-percentage-point gap between employment share (68%) and earnings share (79%) is the largest wage wedge in the economy.

Industry & Construction (NACE B–F)

Foreign firms provide approximately 39% of employment but 52% of earnings in this aggregate. The earnings dominance reflects high-wage, high-productivity pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing activity rather than construction – which remains heavily Irish-owned. The CSO groups these sectors together, which is an important caveat: Construction itself is an indigenous SME-dominated sector.

Finance, Insurance & Real Estate (NACE K–L)

Roughly 45% foreign-owned employment: A classic “anchor plus ecosystem” structure, with major international financial services firms co-existing alongside a substantial domestic banking, insurance and property sector.

Sectors that look like indigenous SME ecosystems

At the other end of the ownership spectrum sit sectors where Irish-owned firms account for the large majority of both employment and earnings. In these sectors, economic resilience depends on thousands of businesses staying healthy, not a few multinational giants.

• Accommodation & Food Services (NACE I): Approximately 86% of jobs are in Irish-owned enterprises, with a similar pattern in earnings. This is the most locally owned major sector in the economy – deeply embedded in communities, regions and towns, and structurally resistant to displacement by foreign ownership.
• Transportation & Storage (NACE H): Around 77% Irish-owned employment. An indigenous backbone sector with a foreign layer in larger logistics and freight operators, but primarily composed of Irish-owned haulage, courier and distribution firms.
• Professional, Scientific & Technical (NACE M): The domestic consulting, legal, accounting and technical services sector is predominantly Irish-owned (approximately 74% of employment), sitting alongside a foreign cohort that includes the professional services arms of major multinationals.

Why this matters

Ireland’s economy is powered by two complementary systems:

• Indigenous, SME-heavy sectors that anchor towns, regions and community employment – and carry the bulk of the national headcount.
• Foreign-anchored, high-wage sectors – increasingly US-dominated – that drive exports, productivity and a disproportionate share of national pay.

This is not a case of “better” or “worse.” The two systems behave differently, respond differently to economic shocks, and need different kinds of policy support. The indigenous base provides resilience and regional distribution; the foreign-anchored base provides productivity, export earnings and a large share of tax receipts. Both are essential; neither is sufficient alone.

Data sources