It looks like 2018 was a bumper year not just for Google but also for its Irish staff.
It appears they will have enjoyed a bumper payout from the company stock allocation scheme, which accounts for a portion of the pay of all Googlers. At least, that is if the experience of their British co-workers is anything to go by.
Google’s UK operation published its 2018 accounts this week showing that the payout to their 3,658 staff there from the share scheme came to a blunt average of £93,571 (€108,700).
The figure does come with some caveats because the average is hardly representative. Share allocation depends on a range of factors, not least how long a person has been with the company and the nature and seniority of their role.
Of course, that means some staff received considerably more than the £93,571 average.
But, overall, the £342.3 million allocated among staff was 56 per cent more than was distributed the previous year. On a per-capita basis, the rise is 44 per cent rise, reflecting, among other things, the 380 additional staff hired in the year.
Google’s Irish staff shared €95.8 million in 2017, an average of €28,691 on top of salary and other benefits.
We won’t know for some time exactly how they fared last year from their share allocation, as Ireland’s filing arrangements for company results are not as demanding in terms of timeliness as in the UK. And Ireland, with a greater proportion of sales roles and relatively fewer engineers in its local workforce, might not expect to precisely match the UK experience.
But still, a 44 per cent rise would bring the average payment to more than €41,000. Even a modestly lower increase would deliver a tidy return for the tech giant’s fast-growing Irish workforce.
