Employment in Irish nonprofits

Of the 8,097 nonprofit companies for which financial statements are available from a regulatory source 4,321 disclose details of payroll numbers and costs. These disclosures indicate that this is a sector with at least 149,360 paid employees.

66,031 of these work in the 310 quasi-public bodies for which employment data is available. Employment terms in these nonprofits provide for salaries and other benefits that are equivalent to public sector grades. Some of these employees (in the higher education, health and social care sectors) are counted as public sector employees in government statistics.

83,329 work in the 4,011 other nonprofit organisations that report having paid staff.

According to mandatory disclosures in the financial statements, the numbers employed in the sector at large have increased by 5.5% from 2013 to 2015. Employment in quasi-public bodies has increased by 3.6%, and in the rest of the sector, employment has increased by 7%.

In the main, Irish nonprofit workers are not highly paid

Since 2015, new financial reporting regulations require all companies — including nonprofits — to disclose the number of their employees whose total remuneration is greater than €70,000 per annum.

Just over 1% of people who work in Irish nonprofits are paid more than €70,000

The difference between quasi-public bodies and the rest of the sector is stark: this is where most of the higher-paid employees are to be found — a total of 1,166 employees of quasi-public bodies are paid more than €70,000 per annum, and almost all (94%) of the people paid more than €150,000 are employed by these organisations.

In the rest of the sector, only 159 nonprofits report that they pay any of their employees more than €70,000 — a total of 691 people.

As this was a new disclosure in 2015, no trend data is yet available. Nonetheless, it provides a benchmark from which future trends can be measured, and it points to a contrast in remuneration profiles as between service providers that follow government pay and pension norms, and the rest of the sector.

In the broader economy, 12.8 % of the workforce declares^* annual remuneration of more than €70,000, by contrast with nonprofits where only 0.5% receive total remuneration of €70,000 or more, discounting the remuneration of people working in quasi-public bodies.
^* Based on information published by Revenue

Very few nonprofit sector employees enjoy the benefits of a company pension scheme

1,234 nonprofits report making pension provision of some kind for their employees — only 29% of all those that report payroll expenditure. Most of the reported pension expenditure is in quasi-public bodies.

Nearly 50,000 people serve as voluntary directors/trustees

48,143 people currently serve as directors on the boards of 9,124 nonprofit companies – about 10% of these serve on more than one board.