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Google Ireland pays out €5bn dividend to parent despite dip in profits and staff cuts

On average Google had around 4,832 employees in Ireland last year
On average Google had around 4,832 employees in Ireland last year

The company behind Google's main Irish operations paid an interim dividend of €5 billion to its parent earlier this year, new accounts filed by the tech giant show.

It follows the payment of a more modestly sized dividend of €42m by Google Ireland during 2022 and a €3 billion payment in 2021.

This year's dividend transfer, which was recorded following the finalisation of the accounts for 2022, came after the company recorded a pre-tax profit of €1.989 billion in the year to end of December, a drop of 30% on 2021.

Turnover at the Alphabet owned company increased by 12% to €72.6 billion from €64.8 billion a year earlier.

Google said this was primarily driven by an increase in advertising revenues, which in turn resulted from a rise in search queries as user adoption and usage grew.

"In 2022 Google Ireland continued to provide value to EMEA advertisers, publishers and partner networks," a Google spokesperson said.

"We saw growth across our key product areas including on Google.com and other Google owned and operated properties."

The company paid tax of €428m, resulting in a profit after tax of €1.561 billion, down from €2.442 billion in 2021.

Cost of sales rose from €14.4 billion to €16 billion in the year, while administrative expenses climbed by €6.9 billion to €54.7 billion.

The average number of employees working at Google Ireland during the year jumped by 15% to stand at 4,832.

However, this was just prior to the company announcing a round of staff cuts earlier this year, which saw 240 workers in Ireland lose their jobs.

Wages and salaries for the year totalled €648m, up from €560m a year earlier.

This means that on average Google workers each earned €134,020 during the period.

Share based payments totalling €196m were also made during the year, while defined contribution pension contributions up to a maximum of 7% of salary worth a total of €25.6m were also made.

Directors received remuneration totalling €1.3m for the 12 months, the same as in the previous year, as well as benefits under long-term incentive schemes which cost €2.5m.