Information and Communications Technology sector workers have highest average earnings

By
Production Editor
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According to a new report from the Central Statistics Office, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Ireland was the third biggest in the EU in 2019. Domestic companies accounted for almost half of employment in this sector.

The CSO says Ireland has become a global hub for the ICT industry with the sector here growing twelve-fold in real terms since 1995.

Some of the reports highlights are as follow:

  • Workers in the ICT sector have the highest average annual earnings in the country receiving €8.5bn in wages in 2019, of which €2bn was from domestic firms
  • Only 32% of workers in the overall ICT sector are female, and they account for only 5% of Telecommunications Engineers
  • Approximately 63% of the ICT workforce had a third level qualification or higher, among the highest in the overall economy
  • Most of the ICT output is exported, with €117bn (91%) of the total €128bn exported in 2019
  • Total investment in the ICT sector at the end of 2019 was €103bn (10% of all capital assets in Ireland)
  • Ireland consumed €8bn in ICT products in 2019, Households accounted for €3.3bn and firms accounted for the remaining €4.7bn

The sector does appear to have a significant gender imbalance: Only 32% of workers in the ICT sector are female: among Telecommunication Engineers this falls to a low of just 5% women.

Large foreign multinationals dominate the job market, but domestic companies employed almost half (40,746) of those (90,766) employed in the sector.

The report presents some of the staggering figures for the global corporations here: imports and exports that amount to a quarter of the GDP for the country as a whole. The large foreign multinational ICT companies are making large profits here, most of which flow out to their owners, but they paid almost €4bn in taxes in 2019 before their profits flowed out. As well as their wages paid, they also show some ‘spill over’ of expertise with domestic firms. Analysis also shows that around 20% of people who change jobs in the ICT sector go between the foreign multinationals and domestic enterprises

See Information and Communications Technology: A Value Chain Analysis 2019

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