The accountancy profession’s total GDP contribution in Ireland has grown by 53% since 2017, hitting €19.8bn in 2022, according to analysis by Oxford Economics.
The report, commissioned by the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB), looks at the contributions made by the accountancy sector, as well as accountants working across the wider economy.
The accounting industry was responsible for a contribution of €3bn, while professional accountants working across other sectors supported a contribution of €16.8bn.
CCAB says an estimated 83,600 workers were directly employed by the accountancy profession in Ireland in 2022, equivalent to one in every 30 of all jobs in the country that year, representing a growth of more than a third since 2017.
Of these, the accountancy services sector employed an estimated 29,800 workers in both accountancy and non-accountancy roles, while a further 53,900 were employed as professional accountants across the rest of the Irish economy.
Businesses spent €3.4bn on external accountancy services in 2022, which equated to 0.6% of all business-to-business purchases in the economy that year. The ICT sector was the largest purchaser of accounting services, spending a total of €0.8bn, equivalent to 0.5% of the sector’s total spend.
