Accenture, the IT consulting firm, has announced plans to cut around 890 jobs from its Irish operations, in addition to the 400 staff already laid off earlier in the year. These job reductions are part of a global cost-cutting initiative that was announced in March. The total number of redundancies sought in 2023 amounts to about 20% of Accenture’s Irish workforce, which currently stands at over 6,500 employees. It is one of the largest batches of IT layoffs in Ireland, a country that serves as a European hub for many major technology companies.
Despite these job cuts, Accenture stated that its business in Ireland remains strong, and the company remains committed to its presence there. The IT sector in Ireland has experienced some job losses recently, with companies like Meta, Microsoft, Stripe, Google, Salesforce, and X (formerly Twitter) also making job cuts in the country. However, the information and communication technologies sector in Ireland still showed a 2.7% growth in employment during the first quarter, contributing to an overall record low unemployment rate of 3.8%.
It’s worth noting that despite the recent job cuts, Ireland’s inward investment agency anticipates an increase in employment by foreign-owned firms in the country in the latter half of the year, following a strong first half. This suggests that the tech sector’s job cuts may have mostly run their course, and further growth is expected in the future.
