A sharp fall in information and technology employment in the past year may suggest that the tech jobs shake-out was more substantial than once thought.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show that the total payroll employee numbers rose to 2.45m in January, up from the seasonally-adjusted 2.4m on the payrolls of private and public companies a year earlier, according to monthly estimates.
The growth in employees numbers reflecting the expansion of the domestic economy was driven by transport, social work, and construction in the past year. The figures also mask hefty falls in some sectors, including in information and communication, which covers many of the big tech multinationals.
The figures show there were around 5,700 fewer employees on the payrolls of information and communication firms from January 2023.
The potential shake-out of tech jobs in Ireland as US multinationals downsized their global workforces for the first time in over a decade attracted much attention last year. The latest estimates suggest that the IT shake-out was significant after all.
The figures show that payroll employee numbers across the 15 sectors of the economy was up 1.9% from a year earlier, but almost unchanged on the previous month.
The 1.9% annual growth was also the slowest rate of expansion of the past 12 months.
Meanwhile, construction payrolls rose by over 3,500 In January from a year earlier.