A new report on the social enterprise sector published by today by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA Ireland) has found that Ireland could be losing out on tens of thousands of jobs along with untold economic and societal benefits from the sector.

Ireland’s social enterprise sector employs around 25,000 people but that is significantly behind the EU average. CPA Ireland claim that if Ireland were to simply match the levels of its European neighbours it could grow to 65,000 if it was to achieve even average EU levels of performance. They believe there is scope for employment to reach 100,000 if the sector is supported properly aswell as the potential for the sector to contribute an additional €2 billion to GDP.

In a global study carried out in 2016 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation, Ireland ranked 43rd out of 44 countries for its social entrepreneurship environment coming in behind such countries as Colombia, Mexico and Pakistan, but CPA say that study referred to social entrepreneurship which has a narrower focus than social enterprise and therefore it is not a fair reflection of what social enterprise is in Ireland.

Source: www.businessworld.ie