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Abstract:

We analyse high-tech employment and wage trends in the European Union between 2000 and 2011. Using a broad industry-occupation framework to define high-tech, we find that the 22 million high-tech workers in the EU-27 represented 10 percent of total employment in 2011. High-tech employment grew at more than twice the rate of total employment during this eleven-year period, and spread throughout the continent—on average, increasing most in regions with previously lower concentrations of high-tech activity. High-tech workers face more favourable labour market outcomes as evidenced by lower unemployment rates and a substantial wage premium—indicating the high demand for these workers and the economic value they generate. We also find a sizable secondary local jobs multiplier, where the creation of one high-tech job in a region results in more than four additional non-high tech jobs in the same region.