A slew of accounts filed by Microsoft’s Irish units give a rare insight into the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ireland.
They also highlight the challenge for Ireland amid the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to employment trends. AI is set to impact up to 7 per cent of all jobs in the State in the short to medium term, according to a central scenario outlined in research this week from the Economic and Social Research Institute the Department of Finance. Many of those job losses will be at the top-end of the economy, it said.
Accounts for the year to the end of June 2025 for Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd, its main trading business based here, shows that its staff headcount increased last year to 2,934. Those employees were paid on average $133,800 in wages and salaries. Add in social security costs, pension and share-based payments and the average rises to just shy of $178,000.
[ Microsoft’s Irish subsidiaries paid close to $50bn in dividends to parent in 2025Opens in new window ]
That is not all money into the pockets of those Microsoft workers but it’s money flowing through the Irish system. That Microsoft entity also paid corporation tax of $841.4 million to the State.
At Microsoft Ireland Research (MIR), which licenses the tech giant’s assets to other group entities, the 1,463 were even better paid, earning on average $144,200 in wages and salaries. Include the other payroll costs and the figure rises to an average of $200,400.
MIR paid $5.4 billion in corporation tax during the year.
At Microsoft Global Finance, which handles treasury management, there were just two employees who were even better remunerated on average than their colleagues at the sister companies. The pair received an average $163,000. Add in social welfare costs and pension payments and the figure rises to $192,500. Its corporation tax bill was just under $18 million.
Clearly, these are valuable jobs, with those high earnings rippling out into the Irish economy.
These earnings also generate substantial income taxes for the exchequer. On Tuesday, the Department of Finance announced that revenue from income taxes rose by 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year to €8.7 billion.
Who knows how AI will ultimately play out and what impact it will have on employment trends but we shouldn’t take it for granted that FDI will continue to prop up the economy.