00:00Ireland's economy is uniquely dependent on jobs from U.S. tech companies.
00:03More than 6% of the workforce is employed in the tech sector, higher than the EU average.
00:10But now, many, like Meta, are culling jobs as they invest in AI, creating widespread employment anxiety.
00:17Joining us now is Olivia Fletcher, our Dublin Bureau Chief Reporter, who's been looking at this for us.
00:23Olivia, so concerns about what AI is doing, the investments in AI by some of the big hyperscalers,
00:29and Meta's example, of course, and what that does to the jobs market in Ireland.
00:34Just how exposed is Ireland, is that nation and its economy to AI disruption?
00:42I mean, yeah, ultimately it is more exposed than a lot of other countries.
00:46And the reason that is, is because, like you say, there's this kind of informal arrangement that Ireland has with
00:53a lot of these multinationals.
00:54You know, over the past few decades, companies like Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google have all set up in Ireland.
01:03And, you know, they pay a lot of tax here.
01:06But also, in return, you know, they really boost Ireland's economy.
01:10You know, without them, Ireland would be in a fiscal deficit.
01:13You know, they also have brought thousands of jobs.
01:16What has changed in the last few years is that, you know, a lot of these companies have kind of
01:21been restructuring.
01:22You know, after the pandemic, a lot of jobs were cut.
01:25These companies, and, you know, the companies kind of attributed that to overhiring during the pandemic.
01:31But, you know, in the last year or so, a lot of jobs that are being cut is because, you
01:36know,
01:36these companies are saying that they're investing billions of dollars worth into AI efficiencies.
01:41So they're no longer going to need certain roles that Ireland happens to have a lot of.
01:46Content moderation, legal, trust and safety.
01:50You know, those are the kind of roles that are being impacted that Ireland has a lot of.
01:55Obviously, it has some core engineering jobs, although perhaps not as many as, you know, L.A. or Tel Aviv.
02:00And so, you know, it's hugely worrying for the Irish economy.
02:05OK, so we're then wondering how Ireland's labour market will be impacted by all of this.
02:10Will there be more unemployment?
02:12Will there just be churn?
02:13And I guess the government is going to be focused on this as well.
02:16What can the Irish government do in this context?
02:20Yeah, I mean, the Irish government produced a strategy in the last few months to try and figure out how
02:28it's going to, you know, kind of combat this issue.
02:30It's probably going to be one of the first governments that's having to deal with this quite, you know, the
02:35significant scale that it is.
02:36You know, in the report, the kind of key takeaway was that it wanted to reskill and upskill and, you
02:43know, to try and create that next kind of stack of higher quality research and development jobs that Ireland would
02:49like more of.
02:50But also on the flip side, Ireland wants to kind of see this as, you know, as a benefit as
02:56well.
02:56Obviously, it recognises it as going to be disruption, but also it really wants to try and harness this opportunity.
03:01And, you know, it's hosting this summit in autumn, it's inviting CFOs like Sarah Fryer, we've reported this morning from
03:08OpenAI.
03:09And, you know, these companies, you know, we've reported last year, for example, that OpenAI and Anthropik actually are expanding
03:15in Ireland.
03:16And, you know, that is with some kind of core engineering roles.
03:20So, you know, there were kind of two sides of the coin.
03:22Ireland probably will be impacted by a lot of these jobs, but it really has to try and climb up
03:26the stack and like create these next kind of high value jobs.
03:30And, you know, whether it can or not is another question, but it's really important because it just cannot be
03:34understated how much Ireland relies on these companies that have totally transformed the economy.
03:40So it really needs to kind of up the game and kind of create this kind of next level of
03:45jobs.
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