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Overview and Key Findings

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Business in Ireland is an annual thematic e-publication released by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland. This publication outlines the key statistics for the Irish business economy in 2015.

Business Demography data (largely based on administrative data from the Revenue Commissioners) are used to analyse the number of enterprises and employment across the five sectors of Industry, Construction, Distribution, Services and Financial & Insurance. This data is combined with the Structural Business surveys, which are run annually by CSO.

This publication provides answers to many key policy questions, such as:

♦ the impact of SMEs on the Irish business economy

♦ the impact of foreign owned enterprises

♦ how concentrated is business economy value add creation in Ireland? 

♦ typical survival rates for new enterprises

 

Acknowledgement

The CSO would like to acknowledge and thank the many enterprises who completed their enterprise survey questionnaires. Without this extensive cooperation, this publication and a range of other important statistics would not be available. The CSO also wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the Revenue Commissioners, as the information provided by Revenue to the CSO is of critical importance in compiling these necessary outputs. All such administrative data provided is only used for statistical purposes, and we think you see the fruits of this data sharing in this very informative publication.

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SMEs (<250)Large (250+)
Active enterprises99.80.2
Persons engaged69.130.9
Turnover47.852.2
GVA38.861.2
  • Large enterprises employed almost 31% of all persons engaged in 2015 and accounted for 0.2% of total number of enterprises
  • Small and Medium enterprises accounted for 99.8% of total number of enterprises in 2015 and over 69% of all persons engaged
  • SMEs generated 47.8% of total Turnover in the business economy and almost 39% of Gross Value added was attributed to these enterprises 
DeathsBirths
20101702213955
20111517714343
20121619915079
20131828713825
20141531616256
201518102
  • The total number of enterprises that ceased trading during 2014 was 15,316, a decrease of over 16% from 2013 levels
  • Enterprise deaths decreased by 10% in the period 2010 to 2014
  • In 2015, births showed an annual increase of over 11% to 18,102
  • Between 2010 and 2015 the number of new births increased by almost 30%
  • The lowest number of enterprise births between 2010 and 2015 was 13,825 enterprises in 2013
Irish-ownedAll enterprises
Micro <107037982410
Small 10-494795557675
Medium 50-2495176168075
Large 250+80052291667
00
All size classes62155131852
  • Gross Value Added per person engaged averaged €131,852 for all enterprises in the Irish non-financial business economy in 2015, while Irish-owned enterprises averaged €62,155
  • Small enterprises reported GVA per person of €57,675, which increased to €68,075 for Medium enterprises
  • GVA was just over €80,000 per person for Large Irish enterprises, but rose to €291,667 when all similar sized enterprises are included
Top 50 by employmentTop 50 by GVA
Gross operating surplus50.459.5
GVA37.254.6
Turnover27.636.4
  • Industry stands out in terms of its reliance on a small number of high value added enterprises. The 50 largest enterprises in Industry by GVA accounted for 68.6% of total Turnover, 85.9% of total GVA and 94% of Gross Operating Surplus for the sector
  • The 50 largest enterprises in the business economy by GVA accounted for 36.4% of total Turnover, 54.6% of total GVA and 59.5% of Gross Operating Surplus. These Top 50 enterprises only accounted for 6.4% of all persons engaged
  • The 50 largest enterprises in the business economy by employment accounted for 27.6% of total Turnover, 37.2% of total GVA and 50.4% of Gross Operating Surplus

 

Figure 1.5 Irish MNEs abroad and foreign MNEs in Ireland, 2015

Figure 1.5 Irish MNEs abroad and foreign MNEs in Ireland, 2015

  • ‌In 2015, Irish multinationals employed almost 774,000 persons in Foreign affiliates and generated Turnover of €168.3 billion
  • By contrast, Foreign multinationals employed just under 304,400 persons in affiliates in Ireland and generated Turnover of €339.2 billion

 

Gross Value Added
Hungary52.7
Ireland52.1
Luxembourg47
Romania43.9
Slovakia43.4
Czech Republic42.3
Bulgaria33
Latvia31.1
United Kingdom29.9
Poland29.1
Belgium27.5
Sweden27.4
Netherlands27.3
Lithuania26.5
Estonia26.4
Austria26.3
Croatia24.9
EU2824.1
Slovenia24.1
Malta22.6
Portugal22.3
Germany21.8
Finland21.6
Denmark21.3
Spain21.1
France16
Italy14.7
Greece12
Cyprus11.2
  • Ireland ranked second in the EU28 for Gross Value Added contributions from Foreign-owned enterprises to the overall non-financial economy in 2014, at 52.1% of total GVA. Hungary had the highest rate at 52.7%
  • This is in comparison to the EU28 average of 24.1% for 2014
  • Other high ranking countries included Luxembourg at 47%, Romania at 43.9% and Slovakia at 43.4% respectively

 

1.1 Main Indicators for all business sectors, 2015

The individual surveys used to compile this report can be accessed here

 

 

Go to next chapter >>>Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths