Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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488.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the proportion of new jobs in Enterprise Ireland-supported firms from Q1 2021 to Q2 2024 that occurred in each of the five cities and outside the five cities; if the target he is setting for the regional spread of employment growth will change in light of the updated National Planning Framework’s projection that 50% of job growth will occur outside the five cities; and if he will make a statement on the matter.[35601/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Irish labour market remains exceptionally resilient as we move through 2024, with another successive quarter showing a new record for the highest number of people employed in our country. More than half of the jobs created in the past year were outside of Dublin, this is a testament to this Government’s commitment to achieving more balanced regional enterprise development.

The recently published Labour Force Survey (LFS) published by the Central Statistics Office show continued growth in Ireland’s labour market, with 70,800 jobs created in the year to Q2 2024. Employment now stands at 2.74 million, an increase of approximately 2.6% over Q2 2023.

This is reflective of the success of the Government’s focus on driving a labour market recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, as set out in the Economic Recovery Plan. This commitment to continued employment growth has been renewed in the government’s White Paper on Enterprise, published in December 2022, which sets out the strategic direction for job creation in the years ahead.

With regards to new jobs created in Enterprise Ireland-supported firms, Enterprise Ireland have advised that their 2024 Employment figures will not be available until later in the year, following the completion of the Annual Employment Survey (AES). The most recent figures available are for 2023.

In 2023, Enterprise Ireland supported companies employed 225,495, the highest ever recorded. In this year, the total number of jobs created was 15,530. When job losses were taken into account, there was a positive net jobs result of 5,011.

68% of new jobs created in 2023 in companies supported by Enterprise Ireland were located outside the Dublin region. Eight out of nine regions recorded net jobs growth, with the West region (+5%), the North-East region (+5%) and the North-West region (+4%) performing strongly.

With the exception of the Dublin Boroughs and Cork, Enterprise Ireland supported employment figures are not broken down beyond county level for confidentiality purposes. Figures are included below.

From an inward investment perspective, IDA’s strategy (2021-24) was designed to further consolidate and build on the positive impact of FDI for the Irish economy and employment opportunities throughout the country, targeting at least half of all investments - that is 400 of 800 - from 2021 to 2024 to regional locations.

IDA is now in the final year of its current strategy and recent performance of the FDI sector has exceeded expectations in an increasingly challenging global economic environment. The total number of regional jobs now stands at 163,471 of a total of 300,583 as at the end of 2023. 131 investments were won in the first half of 2024, 74 of which were secured across regional locations, representing 56% of all investments.

Advancing Ireland’s FDI and Trade Value Proposition is a key pillar of Ireland’s enterprise strategy as set out in the Government’s White paper on Enterprise 2022-2030. In this context, IDA is at an advanced stage of development of its successor strategy for the period ahead which will seek to protect and enhance Ireland’s international reputation to promote and facilitate FDI and continue attract jobs and investment throughout the country while ensuring FDI embeddedness in Ireland and continued agility in a changing world.

Breakdown of EI supported job gains for the Dublin Boroughs & Cork:

Total EI supported employment gains in the 5 cities referred to in the National Planning Framework:

Total EI supported employment gains all Counties: