More job losses are likely in a technology sector that is in a state of flux, the head of employer group Ibec’s Technology Ireland unit has said. However, Una Fitzpatrick said Ireland had “done well” to keep the numbers of jobs lost low and noted the sector had grown significantly over the past four years.
Speaking on Thursday, she cited Central Statistics Office data showing the numbers employed in the tech sector had jumped from 115,000 in the second quarter of 2018 to 165,000 in the second quarter of last year, before the majority of the job losses began to impact staff here.
“Thirty per cent of that growth happened in the two core pandemic years as a whole,” Ms Fitzpatrick told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland. “It is a sector that has grown significantly and it has been an incredibly stable sector for in excess of 10 years.
“In our own budget submission to Government last July we had anticipated that a downturn was forthcoming and that has been exacerbated by global economic factors that are now impacting both the wider Indigenous and FDI tech sector. The sector is really responding to what’s happening at a global level.”
A number of further redundancies in Ireland are expected as Amazon, Meta and Workhuman have announced new cuts to their global workforces. Indeed and Glassdoor informed staff of cuts in recent days, and other companies are expected to follow suit.
Technology Ireland says up to 3,000 additional jobs are expected to be lost in the tech industry here. A paper published earlier this month – ahead of the most recent job cuts – concluded that 2,300 jobs had been lost at technology companies in Ireland since the start of the current cycle of restructuring.
“Typically in Ireland we have done well to try and keep those numbers on the lower side. The talent base here is very strong, and we know that companies are really trying to hold on to their top tier tech talent because there is a recognition that the sector will bounce back,” Ms Fitzpatrick said. “There are huge opportunities in other sectors. From an Ireland perspective it is important that we retain as much of that talent in-country as possible because this is highly mobile, global tech talent that can go anywhere and work from anywhere.”
