The estimated number of job losses at tech companies here is just over 6% of the new jobs created in the sector since the end of 2019.
Over 37,000 jobs were added by ICT companies here over the past three years, according to a new report from the Central Bank which also notes the huge contribution to taxes made by the sector.
The ICT sector here grew two to three times faster than the economy as a whole between 2018 and 2021, according to the report.
It also had huge knock-on benefits for other sectors accounting for 40% of the sales of administrative and support services in the economy.
Employment in ICT grew by almost 30% since the fourth quarter of 2019 to 164,600 workers at the end of last year.
The report finds most of these new jobs were in high-skilled computer programming.
ICT accounts for just over 6% of employment but 12% of all income tax paid and 21.3% of corporation tax receipts.
Wages are high with the average ICT worker generating two and a half times the income tax generated by the average worker in the economy.
The report calculates that even if all of the global percentage reductions in work forces announced by tech companies were applied to their operations here, this would still amount to just over 2,300 lay offs.
This is equal to 1.4% of those employed in the sector here.
The actual number of confirmed lays offs to the end of February was 1,474.
Read more:
Has Ireland escaped the worst of the tech cuts?
Job vacancies
The report maintains there are still over 1,200 vacancies in the sector.
However, it also concludes that the recent downturn in the sector highlights a structural vulnerability in the economy with so much depending on the fortunes of one industry.
Foreign owned multinationals dominate the sector, accounting for 60% of those employed in the industry and 97% of the profits generated.
A third of employees in the sector are non-Irish nationals compared to an 18% average across all employment sectors.
Between 2020 and 2022, ICT workers accounted for 28% or just over 20,000 of the 72,650 work permits issued across the economy.
The report provides further details that 4,240 or close to 6% of visas were issued for workers in Apple, Google/Alphabet and Facebook/Meta combined.
Based on data from the third quarter of last year, 70% of the workers in the ICT sector are male compared to 53% across the economy.
Some 32% were aged between 25-34 years compared to a national average of 20%.
Meanwhile 83% have third level qualifications or above compared to an average in the wider economy of 53%.
The report recommends increased investment in indigenous firms and for windfall corporation tax to be saved in the National Reserve Fund to "lessen the negative effects of any future sectoral downturn".
