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The Employment of IT Personnel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Michael Peneder*
Affiliation:
Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)

Abstract

The rapid advance and diffusion of new information technologies left pronounced imprints on the formation of human capital. Firstly, it favoured the growth of specific computer related occupations, secondly it raises the demand for higher levels of workforce education. Although IT equipment is the showcase of a general purpose technology, pervading the production process in any kind of economic activity, there is substantial heterogeneity among industries in terms of IT-labour intensity. The article demonstrates that these differences are sufficiently systematic to establish a new sectoral classification, which captures substantial portions of the total variation in the above dimensions. More specifically, the results contrast popular beliefs about a uniform dissemination of new information technologies in all sectors.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Mary O'Mahony for providing the data and reviewing the paper; Eva Sokoll for her data-related assistance at WIFO; as well as Martin Falk and Serguei Kaniovski for their careful reading and helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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