Tech employee numbers rise despite rash of lay-offs

Employment levels in the State’s technology sector grew very slightly in the year to June, despite widespread lay-offs among the many multinational tech giants with large Irish-based operations.

The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that 123,200 people were employed in information and communication technology in June, based on real-time Revenue data. This was up 300 on the same month a year earlier. The impact of job cuts across the sector is more evident in month-on-month trends, which show a decline of 1,200 workers from 124,400 in May.

The sector has been hard hit in recent months by lay-offs, with Meta, Google and Microsoft among those who have cut staff across rounds of redundancies. Accenture said earlier this month that it would cut almost 900 jobs from its Irish workforce.

In January of this year, the number of workers recorded in information and communication technology was 125,100. The latest total remains substantially above the 113,000 level recorded for June 2021, however.

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The wider CSO data shows employment in the State’s economy rose across most economic sectors in the year to June, with an increase of 2.6 per cent in employment over the year. Month on month, employment was stable in June, with the seasonally adjusted employee index unchanged from 112.2 in May. A total of 2.4 million employees were at work.

The largest annual increases were seen in the financial, insurance and real estate sector, with employment there rising almost 7 per cent, and in the transportation and storage sector, where worker numbers rose 6.3 per cent.

There was a 2.8 per cent increase in the annual female employee index, with the male index up 2.4 per cent.

The headline rate of unemployment in the Irish economy last month was 4.1 per cent, down from 4.2 per cent in June. The figures had been revised upwards from a provisional estimate published last month that put the headline rate at a record low of 3.8 per cent.

“Employment across all age groups 44 years and under was down in the month to June 2023,” said John Mullane, statistician in the labour market & earnings division, with the largest decline in the 20-24 year old category, which declined 2.1 per cent.

“The remaining age groups showed a monthly increase. Those aged 60-64 years and those aged 65 and over had the largest monthly rise in their indices of 0.4 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively.”