Labour productivity in Ireland from 2010-2019 rose on an annual basis of 3.59%, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office.
The CSO said this compares to an EU average of 1.02% and a euro area average of 0.8%.
Labour productivity measures the value of goods and services produced by workers and is a key economic indicator.
However, when broken down further, the CSO said that productivity in sectors dominated by foreign owned multinationals like manufacturing and computer services rose over the same period by 8.78%. Productivity in the domestic sector rose by 0.83%.
The CSO details how huge investment by multinationals in the economy since 2015, particularly billions of euro worth of intellectual property, has increased the recorded productivity of labour here.
However, the flipside is that the "labour share" in the economy has been declining. This is the proportion of the value of what is produced in the economy which goes on wages.
The labour share fell to a series low in 2018/2019 of 33%, down from 49% in 2010. The CSO said the downward trend is likely to continue as multinationals restructure their balance sheets and relocate their assets to Ireland.
The EU average labour share was 53% in 2019. The average share in the domestic sector in Ireland was 50% while in the foreign sector it was 11%.
The value of capital stock per employee in Ireland has risen from €164,000 per employee in 2000 to €445,000 per employee in 2019, a rise of 171%.
The average annual growth in capital stock for the domestic sector from 2010-2019 was 3.3% compared to what the CSO describes as an "extraordinary"! rate of 26.6% for the foreign sector.
