One of the positives focused on by Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath, in reaction to the publication by the Central Statistics Office of its latest Labour Force Survey was the continued growth in the numbers of people employed within the Information and Communications sector.
That accounts for more than 172,000 people, and according to the CSO the numbers employed by the tech companies grew by 8,500 in the year, with the Minister himself referring to the creation of more than 4,000 new IT jobs in the period between April and June this year alone.
The CSO survey shows that there was an increase of 8,500 people employed in the Information and Communications sector over the 12 months to the end of March.
As with much of the headline figures related to this sector of the economy, a deeper look points to the fact that the Irish economy is very much a subsidiary participant in the ebb and flow of the global technology sector.
In the year between April 2022 and March 2023, companies in the Information and Communications sector were issued with 9,291 work permits. While a perfect correlation cannot be made, this would indicate that the vast majority of new jobs being created within the IT sector here are being filled by people coming to Ireland from countries outside of the EU and EEA.
Indeed, Accenture the company which recently announced that it intends to shed 890 jobs here, has been issued with 125 new work permits for people coming here to work so far in 2023. It was issued with 423 permits for the whole of 2022.
Other tech giants similarly seem to fill the vast bulk of their jobs here with people from outside of the EU.
Amazon was issued with 1,394 permits in 2022; Google with 778; Intel 364; Microsoft with 479; TikTok 226.
That’s over 3,200 jobs in five global corporations all filled by people who have come here to live from outside of the EU. Given that there is also a huge level of profit repatriation by those companies, even accounting for whatever tax they pay here, the Irish state’s relationship with Big Tech requires some serious appraisal over the longer term.
The state is aware of other potential downsides inherent in the relationship it has with the tech giants. In an interview with the Sunday Business Post, McGrath refers to the large tax take from the overseas IT sector but pointed also to the dangers presented by any possible sustained downturn internationally.
The recent announcement by Accenture that it intends to let go almost 900 staff employed in the state being a stark reminder of the huge impact that similar “downsizing” would have if repeated across the other IT giants.