Amazon’s Irish subsidiaries in Ireland paid out more than €600 million in salaries, pension costs and share based payments through its various companies last year. Photograph: Gareth Chaneyset aside more than €110 million in share-based payments for Irish workers in 2023, and estimates it could have to make as much as €330 million in share payments to workers in the coming five years.
Amazon Ireland Support Services Limited, for example, had 2,145 employees at the end of 2023. The company is involved in “the provision of customer services, logistics and other support services to group companies”.It’s had a €1.4bn Olympic clean-up, but the Seine is still too polluted to swim in During 2023, the company made €20.3 million in share based payments, a rise on the previous year’s figure of €19.1 million. While the company has registered the RSUs as an expense on its balance sheet, it notes that the employees could well forfeit the shares if they leave Amazon.
Its staff also received payments in the form of RSUs, the value of which it calculated at €33.3 million in 2023, up from €30.8 million the year before, the accounts show. Of that, basic salary and wages accounted for €195.2 million, while it recorded €57.2 million in share-based payments, up from €50.6 million the year before.
Turnover at Amazon Data Services Ireland, the data centre business, leapt from €4.8 billion to €6 billion, though a rise in costs meant that its pretax profit fell from €61.5 million to €15.1 million, and it ended the year with a loss after tax.