Despite volatility, US market will remain 'incredibly important' for Enterprise Ireland firms 

Job growth for the agency's companies slips to the lowest levels since 2020

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Jenny Melia speaking at its end-of-year results event in Dublin. 

Despite the volatility in trade relations with the US over the past year, Enterprise Ireland said it remained an "incredibly important market” and it is advising companies to continue to expand their presence there.

This comes as the agency reported its end-of-year results for 2025, which showed client companies added 12,608 jobs during the year, resulting in a net employment increase of 2,938 when job losses are accounted for.

This the lowest number of new jobs created and net job increases since 2020 when Enterprise Ireland companies added 5,585 new jobs, resulting in an overall decrease in jobs of 1,494.

Enterprise Ireland client companies employed 232,435 as of the end of 2025.

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Jenny Melia said 2025 was a “challenging year” for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises given volatile global trading conditions coming particularly out of the US.

On the job figures seen in 2025, Ms Melia said while they were lower than previous years, job losses have not gone up, and remain on par with previous years.

She said companies were now more “cautious” about hiring for a number of reasons.

"When I look right across the companies that have recorded losses, we have seen, for example, some projects on the construction side have come to an end and new projects are on pause. They're waiting until those projects come through to start hiring again,” she said.

“We definitely saw losses coming through in some of our beef processors due to the lower number of cattle going through the plants in 2025 versus previous years, and we have 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 customers.” 

Despite the issues the US has created for Irish businesses over the last 12 months, Mr Melia said it continued to be an “incredibly important market” for Enterprise Ireland and their client companies.

She said it accounted for about 20% of client exports, and was their third largest trading partner after Europe and the UK.

"We are giving our companies the same message as we gave companies in 2016, 2018, who were selling predominantly into the UK. We hold on to everything we have in the market. We continue to push deeper in the market, but at the same time, we start to look to diversify as well into other markets,” she said.

"We absolutely see America being important to us, not just for exporting, but for our companies, who are also scaling in the States and putting boots on the ground,” she said, adding Enterprise Ireland client companies employ about 116,000 people in the US.

Ms Melia said the volatility would continue into this year, but the agency can only “control the controllables”.

“Whatever happens external to Ireland is going to happen, but we need to be laser focused here on improving competitiveness,” she said.

During 2025, Enterprise Ireland invested €49.5m into Irish companies, with the size of individual investments ranging between €100,000 to €2m.

All sectors Enterprise Ireland is involved in recorded growth in jobs. It said 69% of the new jobs created among client companies in 2025 were located outside of Dublin.

The industrial and life sciences sector employed 101,747 people in 2025, an increase of 2% year-on-year, while the technology and services sector employed 61,383, an increase of 0.8%. The food and sustainability sectors saw their employment increase by 0.6% to 69,295.