The Taoiseach has said there are no “early warnings” of further job cuts in the technology sector this year despite a slowdown in recent months.
Leo Varadkar said the Government will be monitoring “very closely” the performance of big tech firms in the coming months.
Mass job cuts were announced by Stripe, Meta and Twitter late last year, affecting thousands of workers in Dublin and across Ireland.
The digital sector directly employs more than 270,000 people in Ireland.
Data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that employees in the ICT sector have the highest average earnings in the country, receiving 8.5 billion euro in wages in 2019.
It is understood that thousands of Irish workers lost their jobs as the sector continued to downsize.
Mr Varadkar said: “I suppose when it comes to tech companies, we are monitoring the situation very closely, we don’t have any early warnings at the moment of digital job losses.
“There have been a number in the past couple of months. And obviously, the tech sector is downsizing internationally, we’re not going to be immune from that here.
“A slightly more positive picture, perhaps the last few weeks, than would have been the case six or 12 weeks ago.
“I know a lot of tech companies that are still recruiting, and that’s very positive as well. But it’s a situation that we’ll obviously be keeping under review.
“I’m certain though that in the medium term to long term, we’re going to see further growth in the tech sector, the future is digital.”
Mr Varadkar said he would encourage people to pursue careers in the technology sector.
“All of those technologies we’re going to see more of in the future, not less,” he added.
“I’d certainly say to anyone who’s thinking of subject choices in school or thinking of what course they’re going to do… consider science, technology, engineering and maths, because there’s going to be more jobs in those areas, not less.”
