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Last year, companies supported by Enterprise Ireland (EI) created nearly 16,500 new jobs, similar to 2019 levels.
But the twin challenges of Covid-19 and Brexit meant that when the 17,368 jobs lost at Enterprise Ireland clients’ companies were taken into account, there was a net drop in employment of 872.
In total, there were 220,613 people working in companies supported by Enterprise Ireland at the end of 2020.
“2020 was a very challenging year for Irish businesses due to the dual threats of Covid-19 and Brexit,” said Julie Sinnamon, CEO of Enterprise Ireland.
“Our clients’ companies, employing more than 220,000 people, demonstrated resilience and maintained their businesses and jobs during the pandemic.”
The difficulties experienced in the economy were not felt in all the sectors that EI helped, with life sciences, clean technologies and construction among those in which strong growth was registered.
However, the Covid-19 restrictions hit others hard, including the food sector, where employment contracted 1.5%, while those involved in export also had a hard time.
To help companies survive the pandemic, EI provided € 142 million in support to 1,919 companies through a series of initiatives.
€ 124 million was awarded under the Sustaining Enterprise Fund to help 418 companies employing 17,710 to meet the Covid challenge.
EI also worked with client companies to prepare them for Brexit, with 1,000 customs roles supported to help companies deal with new customs rules.
“The trade agreement reached on Christmas Eve brings certainty to exporters,” Sinnamon said.
“Our plan now is to help exporters to the UK in three main areas; help companies that have yet to put people and processes in place to handle new customs procedures to export to the UK to do so; ensure that exporters remain competitive in the UK by engaging with their supply chain and customers and helping them identify new growth opportunities both in the UK market and in Europe and beyond. “
The Tánaiste and the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar, said that EI had played a key role in meeting the Government’s priorities of keeping as many jobs as possible and helping companies adapt to a radically different business environment.
“Workers in most areas have paid a price to protect public health and limit the spread of the virus over the past year,” he said.
“The good news is that we now have vaccines, which, throughout the year, will allow us to ease restrictions and recover those sectors. We will also continue to invest in research and innovation to ensure our economy is ready.” for the jobs of the future and to take advantage of new technologies and opportunities as they arise.
Enterprise Ireland has also outlined its strategic priorities for this year, including increasing employment at client companies to 222,000, supporting the recovery of exports, including diversifying the market to the Eurozone and increasing the level of research and Irish business development to € 1.25 billion.
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