The second largest city in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

, has an economy focused on the city centre, which as of 2011, supported employment for 24,092 people. According to 2006 figures, the top five employers in the area were public sector organisations, and included Cork University Hospital,

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of ...

Collins Barracks Collins Barracks ( ga, Dún Uí Choileáin) is a former military barracks in the Arbour Hill area of Dublin, Ireland. The buildings now house the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History. Previously housing both British Arm ...

, Cork City Council and Cork Institute of Technology.

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

was the sixth largest employer, followed by Supervalu /

Centra Centra is a convenience shop chain that operates throughout Ireland. The chain operates as a symbol group owned by Musgrave Group, the food wholesaler, meaning the stores are all owned by individual franchisees. The chain has three different f ...

Distribution Ltd, Mercy University Hospital, Bon Secours Hospital and Boston Scientific.

Industry and workforce

Most of the industry in Cork is concentrated around the

Greater Cork Metropolitan Cork is a semi-official term which refers to the city of Cork, Ireland, its suburbs, the rural hinterland that surrounds it, and a number of the towns and villages in that hinterland. Some of the latter towns and villages are within ...

area, taking in Cork city and its hinterland. The immediate Cork city area has a population of almost 209,000 including the suburbs. Around 42,000 workers travel into the city and suburbs to work every day. The majority of those commuters come from Cork County (91%), Waterford City and County, and Kerry (2%). Some of the companies within this area include

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

(Pharmaceutical),

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...

(Pharmaceutical),

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

(Pharmaceutical), EMC (Data Storage),

(European HQ), Avery Dennison (Financial Shared Services), Siemens Group (Third party multi-lingual tech support) and the Marriott Group (Shared Services and Customer Service Contact Centre), Centocor (Biopharmaceutical Manufacture), McAfee (Security Software, EU Operations Centre),

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

(Enterprise Software and International Support/Shared Services Centre), Clearstream and

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

(Customer Services – On line Retail Activities). There are two key third-level institutions in the city,

Munster Technological University Munster Technological University (MTU; ga, Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta na Mumhan) is a public technological university consisting of six campuses located in Cork and Kerry. The university was established in January 2021, the result of a merger b ...

(MTU) and

(UCC), which are the sixth and third largest employers in the city respectively - the latter employing approximately 2,800 people.

Information Technology and pharmaceuticals

Information Technology multinationals such as Apple, Amazon, EMC, IBM, McAfee Ireland Limited, SolarWinds, Siemens and VMware INC have a presence in the city. As of 2017, there are about 140 multinationals operating out of Cork, which employ almost 32,000 people. The area around Cork is home to a number of pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical companies, with a number of pharmaceutical companies located in Little Island and Ringaskiddy.

Retail

Mahon Point Shopping Centre is

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

's largest shopping center, having opened in 2005. Infrastructural investments in the Mahon area included the extension of the N40 dual carriageway via a €137 million tunnel, the

Jack Lynch Tunnel The Jack Lynch Tunnel (Irish: ''Tollán Sheáin Uí Loingsigh'') is an immersed tube tunnel and an integral part of the N40 road network in Cork, Ireland. It is named after former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, a native of Cork. It takes the road ...

, which opened in 1999. Construction began on the shopping centre in 2000, and opened in 2005. Other larger retail centres in the city's suburbs include

Wilton Shopping Centre Wilton Shopping Centre, located in the Wilton area of Cork, is the second biggest shopping centre in the city. It opened on 6 December 1979, and has 65 shops. In 2003, construction began to add 10 new units, and outlets in the centre now includ ...

, Blackpool Shopping Centre, and two centres in

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

Offices and business parks

Larger office buildings in the city include Half Moon Street, Penrose Dock and One Albert Quay in the city centre, with Linn Dubh and The Atrium in Blackpool, and City Gate Park in Mahon. The larger IDA business parks in Cork City and surroundings include Little Island Business Park and

Cork Airport Business Park Cork Airport ( ga, Aerfort Chorcaí, ) is the second-largest of the three principal international airports in Ireland, after Dublin and ahead of Shannon. It is located in Cork City, south of the city centre in an area known as Farmers Cross ...

. Other smaller parks include Cork Business and Technology Park, Kilbarry Business and Technology Park, Carrigtwohill Business and Technology Park and Ringaskiddy Business Park. Recent city centre office developments have included One Albert Quay, consisting of 175,000 sq ft of office space over seven levels on Albert Quay. Opened in March 2016, it is home to Johnson Controls,

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

, and Investec, and described by its developer as "Ireland's smartest building". In the city centre, a 46,000 sq ft office development was completed in January 2019 on the

South Mall The South Mall is an enclosed shopping mall located on Lehigh Street south of Interstate 78 exit 57 near Allentown's southern border with Salisbury Township and Emmaus in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. History 1970s and 19 ...

, and has

KPMG KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a net ...

and

Forcepoint Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions. Forcepoint was f ...

as tenants.

Planned developments

, several developments were underway within the city, with over 1,000,000 square foot of offices reportedly under construction or in the planning stages. This included the proposed €150 million development of accommodation, offices, retail and an event centre at the old Beamish and Crawford brewery site. While a "sod-turning" event was held on the site in 2016, as of 2018, construction had commenced only in certain areas of the development, with construction of the event centre delayed. As of 2020, ongoing developments in the city included a €90 million office scheme at "Navigation Square" on Albert Quay, and a €400 million office, hotel, retail and residential development at Horgans Quay and Cork Kent railway station. Planned developments outside the city include a proposed data centre in Little Island, and several projects around Cork Harbour. The latter included a €40m redevelopment of Spike Island as a tourist attraction, with a further €40m to clean up the former Irish Steel/Irish Ispat site on

Haulbowline Island Haulbowline ( ga, Inis Sionnach; non, Ál-boling) is an island in Cork Harbour off the coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The world's Royal Cork Yacht Club, first yacht club was founded on Haulbowline in 1720. The western side of the islan ...

References