Earlier this week, Google announced plans to hire over 500 new employees at its Dublin complex. The move, according to many, confirms Ireland's role as the search engine giant's hub in Europe.
Google opened its first Dublin offices in 2003 with a whopping five employees on hand, according to Eamon Quinn. More have been hired since then, of course, and the addition of 500 new Googlers will bring the tally to 1300, making the company's Irish presence "the largest outside the United States."
Michael Martin, the Republic's Minister For Enterprise, Trade and Employment, was quite pleased with Google's decision to expand. "Its investment here in Dublin is a huge vote of confidence in our knowledge economy and in our young, educated workforce," he told IrishDev.
"Today's announcement further endorses Ireland's ability to provide the technical infrastructure and skills base to support such operations," Minister Martin continued. "It confirms this country's status as the leading European location for the largest Internet activities in the world. It is an excellent example of the success being achieved by the Government's policy and IDA Ireland's strategy for the development of Ireland's digital media sector."
Those policies and strategies have certainly worked in Google's favor. The company, according to The Register and other sources, is "using a network of Irish companies to cut its tax bill, dropping its effective tax rate from 39 per cent to 31 per cent. This translated into a saving of 100m a year," or about $128 million annually.
John Herlihy, the European Director of Google's Online Sales & Operations, implied that the company is passing on those savings. Speaking to IrishDev, he said, "As we continue to develop our business, our EMEA headquarters has delivered huge value to all our customers - users and advertisers - from Iceland to South Africa and Ireland to Russia."
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