Jenny Melia<\/a> acknowledged that the numbers of job increases were lower in 2025 but pointed to consistency in the number of lost jobs.<\/p>\n\u201cOur job losses are very much on par with where they were last year and, in fact, are lower than in one of the previous three years,\u201d she stated, continuing to say that companies working with Enterprise Ireland had engaged in \u201cover hiring at the end of 2024, anticipating some big projects that were going to come through\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past 12 months, we have certainly seen a more cautious hiring policy,\u201d with client companies \u201cholding off hiring until they absolutely need to\u201d, instead maximising efficiency in their businesses, she said.<\/p>\n
Job losses, the EI boss said, were seen in the construction sector amid a gap between completions and commencements of projects, as well as in Irish beef processors.<\/p>\n
These sectors \u201chave seen some impact of tariffs in the US, with companies either losing contracts or not being able to make a sufficient margin in terms of the negotiation with the customer, or with projects being put on hold\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIrish businesses have faced an extraordinary series of global shocks in recent times and today, we continue to operate in an environment of shifting global trade dynamics,\u201d she said, warning that \u201cvolatility will continue\u201d in 2026.<\/p>\n
Enterprise Ireland directly invested almost \u20ac50 million in equity in Irish companies, leveraging a total of \u20ac440 million in 2025. Individual Enterprise Ireland investments ranged from \u20ac100,000 to \u20ac2 million, reflecting the agency\u2019s new investment strategy. <\/p>\n
This approach moves beyond early-stage funding to multi-stage investing, enabling larger funding rounds and providing greater support for scaling companies. <\/p>\n
The agency said companies it supports in the food and sustainability sector now employ 69,295 people (up 0.6 per cent) with an additional 2 per cent working in the industrial and life sciences sector, which employs 101,747 people. <\/p>\n
The technology and services sector employs 61,383 people, up 0.8 per cent. Climate tech and renewable energy performed strongly, with employment increasing by 6.5 per cent. <\/p>\n
The housing sector saw employment increase by 4 per cent and employment in the high-tech construction sector increased by 2.5 per cent. The fintech and financial services sector grew by 4.9 per cent.<\/p>\n
Ms Melia said \u201cthese figures demonstrate the strength and adaptability of Irish businesses in a challenging global environment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Melia said one the agency\u2019s key priorities for the next year and beyond is to support Irish entrepreneurs to scale globally. <\/p>\n
Europe is now the biggest destination for EI client companies\u2019 exports, having surpassed the UK in recent years, and the state agency views the US as an \u201cincredibly important market\u201d, which accounts for a fifth of all exports.<\/p>\n
Despite the ongoing economic instability, Enterprise Ireland said it will not be changing its \u201cambitious\u201d job creation targets for 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of new jobs supported by Enterprise Ireland in 2025 hit its lowest level in the years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,32210,61,60,89926,1962],"class_list":{"0":"post-265705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-enterprise-ireland","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jenny-melia","14":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265705","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=265705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}