Ireland comes first for high-growth enterprises in Europe

Ireland had the largest number of high-growth enterprises in the European Union in 2015 with such companies having a significant impact on employment levels, new research shows.

The country moved up three places from the previous year in the rankings, which are compiled by Eurostat, the official statistics unit of the EU.

A high-growth enterprise, as defined by the agency, is a company with average annualised growth in number of employees greater than 10 per cent a year over a three-year period.

In 2015, the latest year for which there are records, close to 158,000 companies were recognised as high-growth enterprises in the EU, up from 145,000 a year earlier. This is equivalent to one tenth of all active businesses with at least 10 employees in the European Union.

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The research shows member states show considerable variation in the distribution of such businesses with 2,806 high-growth firms in Ireland. this is equvalient to a 14.9 per cent share, up from 12.6 per cent a year earlier and at a rate that places the country ahead of Malta (13.7 per cent), Hungary (12.5 per cent), Slovakia and Latvia (both 12.2 per cent. At the opposite end of the scale was Cyprus at 2.2 per cent and Romania (2.3 per cent).

The study estimates that high-growth enterprises provide work for over 13.5 million people across the EU.

According to the latest statistics, about 1 in 5 employees were employed in high-growth enterprises in Ireland in 2015, the highest level in Europe. It was followed by Hungary (20.7 per cent) and Portugal (19.7 per cent). In contrast, the lowest shares were registered in Cyprus and Romania at 3.6 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively.

Looking at a breakdown by economic activity, high-growth enterprises in the EU were more predominant in the service sectors than in the rest of the business economy in 2015.

The highest proportion of high-growth enterprises was in the Information and communication sector, followed by administrative and support service activities, transportation and storage, and professional, scientific and technical activities.