Determinants of employment in information and communication technologies and its structure

Abstract

Economic sector of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is one of the most innovative and has several positive consequences on productivity and economic growth. Our main aim was to identify potential determinants affecting the employment in ICT in short-run and long-run. We also examine its structure according to subsectors, gender, age and education in EU countries. We find significant differences between countries in the structure of ICT employment and also indentify several trends. Based on the results there is in general a decreasing trend of women employed as ICT specialists in the EU. Significant drop was recorded especially during economic crisis in 2009–2010. On the other hand the share of ICT specialist with higher education is growing in recent years. Furthermore, we applied correlation, panel Granger causality tests and panel cointegration regression in order to find potential determinants of employment ICT. Our results suggest that there is a positive effect of ICT skills and education on employment in ICT. This is especially true in the case of employment in ICT services. Furthermore, economic situation as well as share of people using internet in the country seems to be both significant determinants of employment in ICT in the long-run.