Brussels, 22/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - “Europe needs more information and communication technology (ICT) specialists. Finland and Sweden have shown the way to go.” So said Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger following the publication on Thursday 21 January of a report by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.
The data used in the report come mainly from the secondary statistics on ICT specialists, which are derived from the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) data on employment. The report shows that the demand for ICT specialists has continued to grow in recent years. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of ICT specialists rose by almost 1.2 million in the EU and their share in total employment grew from 3.2% to 3.7%. It points out that almost 40% of companies with at least 10 persons employed which recruited or tried to recruit personnel for jobs requiring ICT specialist skills had hard-to-fill vacancies in 2014. The highest percentage of firms which had difficulties in recruiting ICT specialists was recorded in the Czech Republic and Luxembourg (both with 59%), followed by Austria (56%), the Netherlands (53%) and Malta (52%).
In relative terms, the highest shares of ICT specialists in total employment in 2014 were recorded in Finland (6.7%) and Sweden (6.0%). At the other end of the scale, Greece (1.3%), Bulgaria and Lithuania (both 1.9%) and Latvia (2.0%) registered the lowest proportions. Also of note is that this profession is largely made up of men, who in 2014 accounted for more than 8 in 10 specialists employed in the EU (81.9%). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)