Kildare TD welcomes record job creation by Enterprise Ireland firms in 2021
A TD from Kildare has welcomed the news that a record number of jobs were created by Enterprise Ireland (EI) firms last year.
Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare North, Deputy James Lawless, welcomed news that the number of staff employed by EI supported companies rose by 11,911 last year, in spite of the impact of the pandemic.
This is the highest annual increase in net employment reported by EI.
Employment increased across all economic sectors, with particularly strong jobs growth reported in Life Sciences (14 per cent), Business Services (12 percent) and Digital Technology (10 per cent).
"EI has been a stalwart in sustaining enterprise throughout a very difficult year for business: together we managed to overcome these barriers by commencing once again a number of important physical trade missions throughout 2021 to the Eurozone area, the Gulf region and the U.K. and reignited our transatlantic relationships with Canada and the U.S.
He continued: "Despite the great challenges I am delighted that nearly 1,400 new overseas contracts were completed in 2021 and 184 Enterprise Ireland assisted companies have entered new markets.
"In collaboration with the Local Enterprise Offices, great strides have also been made in accelerating the pace of innovation, digitalisation, and transition to a low carbon economy.''
The total employment by companies supported by EI in 2021 was 207,894.
Other key achievements which were highlighted in the End of Year Statement issued by EI included:
- 125 new start-up companies supported
- 1,375 overseas contracts secured with Enterprise Ireland assistance and the resumption in September 2021 of physical trade missions
- €61.6m in funding approved for 341 COVID-impacted companies in 2021
- 218 companies received funding of more than €100,000 to support other projects in 2021
- €14.6m was approved for 1,048 projects under the Ready for Customs Grant.