IDA sets target of 12,500 new jobs in 2012

EMPLOYMENT prospects among multinationals in Ireland for 2012 are “encouraging”, the Industrial Development Authority said after reporting its best year for job creation in a decade.

Foreign companies assisted by the IDA created over 13,000 jobs here in 2011 and, even though they lost almost 7,000 in the same period, that still left 6,114 extra people in work.

The comparative figure for 2010 was just 1,400 extra jobs, while in the first of the downturn years of 2008 and 2009 there were net losses of 1,200 and 13,400 jobs respectively.

The turnaround in 2011 was helped by substantial investments from existing IDA-backed companies including Intel, Coca-Cola, Bausch and Lomb, Google, Paypal, Allianz and Hewlett Packard, which all expanded or announced expansions for their operations here.

However, there were also investments by 61 companies setting up in Ireland for the first time, including several from the rapidly growing economies of Russia, India and China.

Barry O’Leary, the IDA chief executive, said while Ireland’s reputation overseas had taken a battering in recent years, it had been helped considerably by the faith shown by companies such as Google and Intel, which were making investments in plant as well as people.

“That’s a great confidence boost because it’s people putting money into the ground,” he said. “Overall, it’s very challenging but sentiment towards Ireland is improving.”

Mr O’Leary said the target number of jobs to be created in 2012 was 12,500. That plan got off to a good start yesterday with three investment announcements:

nUS software provider Workday said it would create 100 jobs in Dublin over the next three years.

nTranslation services company CETRA announced 20 new jobs in Limerick.

nCook Medical, which employs 630 people in Limerick, revealed details of a new €16.5 million research lab in the city.

Mr O’Leary said Ireland was also in the running for six “significant” life science projects this year.

“They would involve investment of a couple of hundred million euro and there would be a sizeable number of construction jobs at the outset.”

The IDA last year made €86m in grants available to multinationals to help them set up or expand here or to assist with R&D to help ensure their viability here.

The cost to the taxpayer for each job created is €13,000-€14,000 but Mr O’Leary said that had to be placed in the context of the €6.9 billion that IDA supported companies paid out in wages here each year.

He said Ireland still faced pressure from low-cost economies like Poland and India and said it was vital that the country remained a competitive place to do business. but while he said lower wages would attract more jobs, it was not the only factor.

“If wage costs were lower, we would attract more jobs yes but here is a fine balance between cost and quality.”