Between direct investment, the related economic impacts, and employment, Microsoft’s Irish operations have contributed \u20ac4.9bn in total economic output in the last year, a new report has found, as the company celebrates 40 years in Ireland.<\/p>\n
The report, commissioned by Microsoft and written by consultant group Indecon, found the tech giant has spent \u20ac28.9bn in Ireland in the period 2014 to 2025 \u2014 of which \u20ac3.6bn was spent in the last year \u2014 which resulted in a \u20ac40.1bn impact on economic output.<\/p>\n
These figures do not include the taxes the company pays here.<\/p>\n
Of that total expenditure, \u20ac4.5bn was spent on direct wages and salaries, of which \u20ac760m was spent in the last year.<\/p>\n
The report comes as the company celebrates its 40th year operating in Ireland. It first invested in Ireland in September 1985 to serve as its base to serve European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) regional markets.<\/p>\n
At that time, the company had a small manufacturing operation of fewer than 100 people. By 2014, its number of employees was 1,113.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By this year, that number has grown to 6,463 aided by its acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016, and the acquisition of games company Activision Blizzard King in 2023.<\/p>\n
The report also suggests Microsoft\u2019s operations in Ireland, between direct and indirect employment, as well as capital expenditure, has supported just over 20,000 jobs across the country.<\/p>\n
Over this period 2014-2025, Microsoft has invested more than \u20ac1.7bn in research and development (R&D) in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndecon estimates indicate that Microsoft\u2019s R&D expenditure in Ireland has accounted for around \u20ac1 in every \u20ac22 spent by foreign firms in Ireland on R&D\u00a0 \u00a0in recent years, making it one of the largest investors in R&D activity in the State,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
The company said Microsoft Ireland Research plays an important role in the developing and advancing its portfolio of products and services \u2014 including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Copilot Studio, and the Xbox gaming franchise.<\/p>\n
Microsoft said over the past decade, it has provided \u20ac137m in philanthropy grants and \u20ac120m in donations to charitable causes, while employees have contributed more than 940,000 volunteer hours to community initiatives.<\/p>\n
To mark its 40th year in Ireland, the company also committed to spending an additional \u20ac4m on AI skilling initiatives in Ireland.<\/p>\n
The company said this funding would provide people the opportunity to develop their AI fluency and digital skills, benefiting communities and businesses across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis investment will also support the expansion of AI learning opportunities for young people through Microsoft Dream Space, which has already engaged over 500,000 students since 2018,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Microsoft Ireland site leader James O\u2019Connor said the company\u2019s focus was \u201con ensuring that the benefits of technology and AI are accessible to all, helping Ireland continue to thrive as a leader in the digital era\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy investing an additional \u20ac4m in AI-skilling and through the development of a third Dream Space hub at our data centre campus in Grange Castle, we will continue to deliver on our mission of providing every person across the island with the skills to thrive in the era of AI,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between direct investment, the related economic impacts, and employment, Microsoft’s Irish operations have contributed \u20ac4.9bn in total economic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,8531,43],"class_list":["post-161679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-munster-business","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}