{"id":272451,"date":"2026-01-30T19:36:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272451\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T19:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:36:26","slug":"nervousness-pervades-the-irish-jobs-market-as-days-of-strong-multinational-sector-growth-recede-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272451\/","title":{"rendered":"Nervousness pervades the Irish jobs market as days of strong multinational sector growth recede \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the passing of the Covid<\/a> pandemic in 2021 up until last summer, the unemployment rate in Ireland<\/a> had been remarkably static. <\/p>\n

This was despite some of the most challenging geopolitical and economic events of recent years.<\/p>\n

A war had erupted in Ukraine with an associated explosion in oil and gas prices. Inflation spiked in a way not seen in decades. And Donald Trump<\/a> won the US presidency \u2013 unleashing tariffs on Europe and uncertainty everywhere else.<\/p>\n

Yet, until July 2025, the overall percentage of people classed in the State as unemployed bumped around between 4 per cent and 4.5 per cent (a level considered as full employment). The buzzword from the Government<\/a> and the State agencies was \u201cresilience\u201d.<\/p>\n

That figure has now edged up to 5 per cent \u2013 with youth unemployment (15 to 24 years old) rising to 14 per cent.<\/p>\n

In real terms, almost 20,000 more people were out of work last month when compared to December 2024.<\/p>\n

A nervousness pervades the jobs market. Workers wonder if this is a perfectly normal slippage after a period of unusually stable employment \u2013 or the sign of further job losses to come?<\/p>\n

On the face of it, the latest numbers from Enterprise Ireland<\/a> are encouraging. <\/p>\n

The State agency, which supports Irish companies operating in the international sector, reported jobs growth among its client companies last year of more than 12,000 \u2013 with a net growth in new positions of about 2,900.<\/p>\n

But the growth has slowed. <\/p>\n

In 2021, Enterprise Ireland companies added more than 20,300 jobs but the numbers have been slipping since. <\/p>\n

Announcing the figures, its chief executive Jenny Melia said Irish businesses had experienced an \u201cextraordinary series of global shocks\u201d since the turn of the decade \u2013 and hiring policies last year had become more cautious.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy and large you could break 2025 into two halves,\u201d says Enterprise Ireland executive director Kevin Sherry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first half of the year there was uncertainty about what impact tariffs<\/a> would have \u2013 and some companies paused their investment decisions. But we saw that change in the second half of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherry acknowledges that the overall new jobs numbers among client companies have come down over the past five years \u2013 but he says what was witnessed in 2021 was a \u201crecovery period\u201d and a very welcome \u201cbounce\u201d after Covid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen sustained growth since then \u2013 and sustainable growth. We don\u2019t want to see big peaks and troughs. Importantly, the job losses number has not increased \u2013 in 2025 they were around the same level as 2024, \u201823 and \u201822. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not seeing companies taking on talent and then having to let it go, which is what we don\u2019t want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherry says Irish companies who are invested in the US<\/a> will continue to do so and are in it \u201cfor the long haul\u201d. However, he says many Irish companies have grown their presence in the euro zone and, in particular, the Nordic countries. <\/p>\n

\u201cReally, I\u2019m very optimistic and confident about 2026,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere will continue to be challenges \u2013 some known, some unknown. Our message to companies is that they should concentrate on controlling the controllables \u2013 the things you can influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news on Wednesday of a further 16,000 job cuts from Amazon<\/a>\u2019s global workforce (with 300 roles potentially impacted in Ireland, according to RT\u00c9) will not have eased anxiety about broader economic trends, however. <\/p>\n

The online retail giant is rowing back on hires it made during Covid \u2013 and taking advantage of advancements in artificial intelligence<\/a> to reduce headcount.<\/p>\n

So-called white-collar workers are bearing the brunt of these changes. <\/p>\n

Workers who had been on decent salaries, in many cases, are finding themselves being made redundant and having to face into a harsher labour market than the one they were previously acquainted with.<\/p>\n

Conall Mac Coille<\/a>, chief economist at Bank of Ireland<\/a>, reckons the days of high growth in multinational job numbers are a thing of the past. The bank\u2019s latest forecast puts employment growth for 2026 at 1.5 per cent \u2013 a significant cooling compared with recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at multinational sector employment,\u201d he says. \u201cIt has barely expanded over the past three years \u2013 there has been a shake-out in ICT [information and communication technology] employment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been reasonable gains in manufacturing \u2013 but the days of 5 or 6 per cent growth in the multinational sector are behind us.\u201d <\/p>\n

He cites Google<\/a> and Facebook<\/a> owner Meta<\/a> as good examples of companies that overhired during the pandemic period and have now rebalanced. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sectors that are doing well are manufacturing, construction and the public sector,\u201d he says. \u201cThere has been a lot of money put aside in the budget for the wage bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

So called consumer-facing businesses are struggling, however. Mac Coille references rising costs for the restaurant sector, where increased energy bills and food price inflation continue to bite. <\/p>\n

He says this may explain why there has been an increase in youth unemployment and a reduction in part-time work. <\/p>\n

The same landscape in the jobs market has been identified by the Central Bank of Ireland<\/a>. In its final quarterly bulletin of 2025 it noted that employment growth would likely continue to slow over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n

This slowing rate of growth, it said, would have a stronger negative impact on people trying to re-enter the jobs market after a period on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

Caution surrounded investment decisions in 2025, it noted.<\/p>\n

The Economic and Social Research Institute<\/a> (ESRI) made similar noises before Christmas. It calculated that a third of those people added to the unemployment numbers were in the youngest category.<\/p>\n

It reported that \u201cquarter-on-quarter growth in seasonally adjusted employment has been estimated to be near zero in three of the last four quarters\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bank of Ireland, the Central Bank and the ESRI all believe the Irish unemployment rate will average 5 per cent over the course of the year.<\/p>\n

This would not be deemed a terrible outcome given the geopolitical tumult of the past 12 months. <\/p>\n

Instead, the ESRI, and others, are watching to see the longer-term impact of US tariffs on European Union goods \u2013 which will bed in over time. It is also concerned with the rise in protectionist policies around the globe as posing the biggest threat to Ireland\u2019s open economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis process … may present structural changes to our globalised economic model … and lower the potential future growth rate of the economy,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

In the short term there would not appear to be an immediate crisis looming.<\/p>\n

According to Christopher Paye, country director of the StepStone Group Ireland \u2013 which runs the IrishJobs.ie website \u2013 there remains a skills gap here<\/p>\n

The IDA<\/a> said last year was a record one for inward investments \u2013 despite Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s liberation day tariffs last April and the torturous negotiation of an EU-US trade framework.<\/p>\n

It said those investments were expected to create more than 15,000 new jobs and represented a 14 per cent increase on the previous year. Overall employment at IDA-supported companies was reported to have increased by 1.5 per cent over the course of 2025.<\/p>\n

Trayc Keevans is global foreign direct investment (FDI) director at Morgan McKinley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She says there are still reasons to be optimistic about the \u201cpipeline\u201d of foreign investment into Ireland \u2013 but the pace of investment and decision-making has definitely slowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m an optimist,\u201d she says. \u201cLast year everyone was looking on \u2013 and saw fewer companies investing in Ireland \u2013 but then when the numbers were finally published it turned out it had been a record year. <\/p>\n

\u201cUS employers were reluctant to make job announcements \u2013 they didn\u2019t want to put their heads above the parapet when the emphasis was on job creation at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the lag time between meeting a company and when they finally land here is definitely longer than it was. In the old days it could be as little as three months. Now some are taking up to 18 months \u2013 there are a lot more visits and a lot more decision-makers involved.\u201d <\/p>\n

Keevans says the US is obviously still very important from an FDI point of view \u2013 but the source of that investment has diversified. \u201cChina<\/a> is showing a lot of interest,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are across every sector. In terms of the companies I have met \u2013 you are talking about very large tech companies on the scale and size of a TikTok<\/a> and there is a lot happening in the pharma<\/a> space. The traditional route for Chinese companies is to come through mergers and acquisitions rather than setting up a greenfield investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the skills front, Keevans has detected the impact of artificial intelligence on roles that would have traditionally been the domain of new graduates. <\/p>\n

\u201cRepetitive tasks, anything that can be automated,\u201d have been handed over to AI in many instances \u2013 leaving the newly qualified with a less obvious route into many workplaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur message to graduates is to be more open-minded,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt may feel more daunting to be a grad in today\u2019s market \u2013 in that you think there are fewer roles \u2013 but I would argue that isn\u2019t the case. There are fewer visible roles. If they can get their heads around that there are very interesting opportunities out there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says that many old career trajectories have changed due to this rise in automation \u2013 and that graduates are having to pivot to those areas where there is still big demand \u2013 such as data compliance. <\/p>\n

Keevans also reports that the Irish universities are \u201cnot waiting\u201d any more \u2013 and are looking to work closely with sectors on how best to make their students \u201cemployment ready\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to Christopher Paye, country director of the StepStone Group Ireland \u2013 which runs the IrishJobs.ie<\/a> website \u2013 there remains a skills gap here. He says its research shows that almost 70 per cent of employers are struggling to recruit talent that can \u201cfuture-proof\u201d their operations.<\/p>\n

He says that while everyone is focused on AI there is also a need for talent management skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile hard skills such as AI and data analysis are in high demand, employers are increasingly prioritising candidates with softer skills such as people management and leadership,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Their recent IrishJobs Hiring Trends Update reported that one in four employers here were planning on upping their recruitment this year \u2013 a sign perhaps of \u201cgrowing confidence\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, he says many companies in export-led sectors such as manufacturing remain \u201chighly attuned to international turbulence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mac Coille is reserving judgment on the impact that AI plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too soon to say but I don\u2019t think the slowdown in multinational job growth we are seeing is due to AI,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Kevin Sherry of Enterprise Ireland says the agency sees new innovations in AI as a positive for its client companies and not a threat to jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are going to be areas that will be impacted by AI usage and we need to ensure that Irish companies are at the forefront of that deployment. There is nothing for us to be afraid of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the passing of the Covid pandemic in 2021 up until last summer, the unemployment rate in Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3468,218,7863,72,4505,46155,160,69562,113,32210,823,1711,15000,61,60,1226,118566,8877,6116,1962],"class_list":["post-272451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-amazon","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bank-of-ireland","tag-business","tag-central-bank","tag-conall-mac-coille","tag-covid-19","tag-economic-social-research-institute-esri","tag-economy","tag-enterprise-ireland","tag-facebook","tag-google","tag-ida-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-morgan-mckinley","tag-pharma","tag-tiktok","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272451","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=272451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}