How about dispatching the direction to get the appropriate sort function? 
my %sorts  = (
  DESC => sub {
    $hash{$b}{$orderby} <=> $hash{$a}{$orderby}
    or
    $hash{$b}{$orderby} cmp $hash{$a}{$orderby}  
  },
  ASC => sub {
    $hash{$a}{$orderby} <=> $hash{$b}{$orderby}
    or
    $hash{$a}{$orderby} cmp $hash{$b}{$orderby}
  }
);

my $sort_func = $sorts{$direction};
foreach my $id (sort { &$sort_func } keys %hash) {

[download]
Update: do the hash lookup only once, not for every comparison.
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

In reply to Re^2: sort direction by Roy Johnson
in thread sort direction by rsiedl

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