GEM Ireland 2011 Report Published

25-Sep-2012

The report on GEM Ireland 2011 has just been published.

The report provides an overview of entrepreneurship in Ireland in 2011, as well as a close look at the entrepreneurial gender divide. Some of the key findings of the report:

Few people see entrepreneurial opportunities
The very low prevalence rate at which people in Ireland are seeing opportunities for new businesses (26%) showed no signs of any real increase in 2011 over 2010 and continued at historically low levels.

Continuing low levels of those aspiring to be an entrepreneur
The prevalence of those aspiring to be an entrepreneur in Ireland in the future was at a very low level (8.5%) in 2011, continuing the low levels observed in 2010. This is a significant change to the relatively high levels of previous years and now places Ireland behind the average across the OECD and EU. The belief that entrepreneurship is a good career choice is also much lower in Ireland than it is in other countries.

Relative rate of early stage entrepreneurs continues to decline
Ireland’s position in the ranking of entrepreneurial activity across EU-15 countries has declined in recent years. For many years Ireland had a leading position within Europe in respect of these countries. In 2011, four countries, the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, and the UK ranked higher in terms of rates of total early stage entrepreneurial activity.4 Moreover, entrepreneurial activity in Ireland is considerably behind the higher rate of entrepreneurial activity in the newer accession countries.5 The prevalence of early stage entrepreneurs in Ireland (7.3%) is also considerably behind that in Australia (10.5%) and in the United States (12.3%).

The high rate of necessity entrepreneurship continues
The 2010 GEM report noted that the reasons motivating people to become an entrepreneur had altered significantly from previous years, with a very marked increase in the number of individuals starting a new business through perceived necessity (32%). This trend continued in 2011 (31%). Ireland has a higher rate of necessity entrepreneurs than the norm across the OECD and the EU, including Spain and Greece.