The most notable year on year changes in turnover for 2012 were increases in Professional, scientific and technical activities, which grew by 14.9% and the Information and communication sector which reported an increase of 8.5%. Of the increase of €8.6bn in total turnover, Information and communication accounted for €4.5bn.

The value of Wholesale and retail trade has seen year on year increases since 2009, with an increase of 0.8% between 2011 and 2012. See Figure 1.

Annual changes 2011 to 2012

The most significant annual changes in GVA were increases in Administrative and support service activities of 7.3% and Wholesale and retail trade at 4.0%. Despite increasing turnover, increases in operating expenses in a number of sectors resulted in only a marginal increase in total GVA for Services and Distribution. See Figure 2. 

There has been an annual increase of 1.2% in the number of persons engaged in the Services and Distribution sector in 2012, bringing total employment in the sector to 903,657.

Many individual sectors showed a small increase in employment in 2012 since the previous year. While the Wholesale and Retail enterprises sector, experienced a decrease in employment between 2009 and 2012, it showed signs of stabilisation with a minor increase in persons employed in 2012.

Overall, the number of people engaged in Services and Distribution enterprises dropped by 1.6% between 2009 and 2012.

Wholesale and Retail enterprises, the biggest employer in the Services and Distribution sector, experienced a reduction of 3.9% in employment, or 13,210 persons, between 2009 and 2012. The Transportation and storage sector experienced a reduction of 7.7% in employment, or 6,331 persons, in the same period, of which 2,614 occurred in 2012. See Figure 3.

Enterprises by size class

Over the period 2009-2012 the share of total Services and Distribution employment attributed to SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises employing less than 250 persons) and large enterprises (250+ persons employed) has showed little change, with SMEs consistently accounting for around three-quarters of employment and large enterprises the remaining quarter.

SMEs recorded an increase in employment between 2011 and 2012, up 2.0% while large enterprises showed a decrease of 1.1%. See Figure 4.

Large enterprises increased turnover by €3.4bn or 23.4% in 2012 from 2011 levels, while SMEs showed an increase of €5.2bn or 7.4%. See Figure 5. 

Enterprises by nationality of ownership 

In 2012 Irish owned Services and Distribution enterprises accounted for almost 52.1% or €111bn of total Services and Distribution turnover, the remaining 47.9% or €102bn was accounted for by foreign owned enterprises. Since 2009 the share of total turnover attributed to foreign owned Services and Distribution enterprises has increased steadily from 41.8% in 2009 to 47.9% in 2012. There has been a corresponding decrease in the share of total Services and Distribution turnover from Irish owned enterprises, from 58.2% in 2009 to 52.1% in 2012. See Figure 6. 

Total employment in Services and Distribution enterprises fell by 1.6% between 2009 and 2012. This decline can largely be attributed to a fall in employment in Irish owned Services and Distribution enterprises.  Employment in foreign owned enterprises rose by 5.2% or 8,700 persons between 2009 and 2012. Employment in Irish owned enterprises in this sector fell by 3.1% or 23,588 persons. By 2012, employment in foreign owned enterprises accounted for 19.4% of total Services and Distribution employment.  See Figure 7.

Services and Distribution in EU28, 2011

In 2011 the Services and Distribution Sectors accounted for 62.4% of turnover in the total business economy (excluding Financial Services) for Ireland. The highest recorded for the EU28 countries is Luxembourg at 83.1% followed by Cyprus and the United Kingdom at 71.5% and 70.9% respectively. The lowest recorded is Slovakia at 46.8%. See Figure 8.

Please use the following links to access Services and Distribution annual data:

Statbank link -  Click here

Eurostat link -   Click here

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Background Notes

 

The Annual Services Inquiry (ASI) has been conducted on annual basis since 1991. The purpose of the survey is to provide grossed estimates of the principal trading aggregates for all enterprises in the retail, wholesale, transportation and storage, accommodation and food, information and communication, real estate, professional, scientific, technical, administrative and other selected services sectors.

Legislation

Annual Services Inquiry is a compulsory survey conducted under the Statistics (Structural Business Inquiries) Order 2010 (S.I. No. 91 of 2010), made under the Statistics Act 1993 and Regulation (EC) No. 295 of 2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics.

 

Central Business Register

The CSO’s Central Business Register provides the sampling frame from which the Annual Services Inquiry sample is selected each year. The Central Business Register is also used as the basis for the sampling frame used to gross sample data to the population The Business Register is updated continuously throughout the year.

 

Sample Design

The ASI is designed to provide grossed estimates of the principal trading aggregates for all enterprises in the relevant sectors. The ‘enterprise’ is the unit used for survey purposes i.e. one return is sought in respect of each enterprise covering all constituent branches, local units or subsidiaries. The sample is selected based on number of persons engaged in the enterprise i.e. number of proprietors plus number of full-time and part-time staff. A census of enterprises with 20 or more persons engaged is selected. In addition a stratified random sample is selected for the enterprises with less than 20 persons engaged, with decreasing sampling proportions taken in the lower persons engaged ranges.

All enterprises with 1 or more persons engaged are included in the survey frame. However, the units with 1 person engaged are not surveyed; the data for those are imputed directly from administrative data sources.

 

Grossing 

Collected and edited data for companies with 2 or more persons engaged is aggregated using ratio estimators (a general estimator for the population total). Number of Persons Engaged is known for all members of the population and used as an auxiliary parameter for all monetary and employment variables.

Horvitz-Thomson estimator is used for number of enterprises and number of local units.

This process results in assigning every company on the final dataset two grossing factors (weights) dependent on the NACE code and employment size class . The underlying assumption in the ratio estimator strategy is that a variable of interest (e.g. turnover) and the auxiliary parameter (employment) are linearly connected. Units, for which this assumption is strongly violated (outliers), are identified and adjusted if necessary.

The data for units with 1 person engaged is imputed from administrative data sources directly, where possible. Variables that are not available, such as capital acquisitions and disposals, are modelled using linear regressions from respondents with 2 to 9 persons engaged. Horvitz-Thomson estimator is used to gross the data to account for units which have no administrative data available.

 

Number of Persons Engaged   includes all full time and part-time employees. It also includes proprietors, partners and family members who work for an enterprise. It excludes agency workers.

 

Service and Distribution in EU28 ² Ireland includes NACE groups G-N (excl K) and R92, R93, S95 and S96. The other EU Countries include NACE groups G-N (excl K) and S95.

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