ICT in society

Draft

ICT affects many aspects of society. This piece should become an overview article at some point - Daniel K. Schneider 18:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC).

Definition of ICT skills

Van Welsum and Vickery (2005:6) define three categories of ICT skills:

1. ICT specialists, who have the ability to develop, operate and maintain ICT systems. ICTs constitute the main part of their job â they develop and put in place the ICT tools for others.
2. Advanced users: competent users of advanced, and often sector-specific, software tools. ICTs are not the main job but a tool.
3. Basic users: competent users of generic tools (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint) needed for the information society, e-government and working life. Here too, ICTs are a tool, not the main job.

According to Van Welsum and Wickery, Peneder (2003) divides ICT using industries up into four categories: (i) IT producer - services, (ii) IT producer - manufacturing, (iii) dynamic IT users with a high and growing IT labour intensity, and (iv) other IT user industries.

Development of ICT skills in the population and diffusion of ICT to business and homes is fairly high on the agenda of OECD countries. According to OECD(2008), the top ten ICT policy priorities are:

1. Government on line, government as model users
2. Broadband
3. ICT R&D programmes
4. Promoting IT education
5. Technology diffusion to business
6. Technology diffusion to individuals and households
7. Industry-based and on-the-job training
8. General digital content development
9. Public sector information and content
10. ICT innovation support

ICT and ICT-related employment

According to OECD:

• The share of ICT specialists employment in business in most developed countries in 2006 varies between 4% and 10%. The EU15 aggregate was 2.61% in 1995 and 3.06% in 2007. (ICT occupation, narrow definition, retrieved 18:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC)).
• The share of ICT-related jobs in the total economy of developed countries is much higher. In 2007, it varies between 20 and 30%. The EU15 aggregate was 20.62% in 1995 and 22.04% in 2007. (ICT-related occupations in selected countries, broad definition).

These ICT-related data are estimates. The choice of occupations to be included was based on an assessment of the degree to which workers are expected to use ICTs for their own output/production (Van Welsum and Vickery, 2005:6). “It was found that the narrow measure of ICT specialists followed a similar pattern across countries (EU15, United States, Canada and Australia), but that the trends for broad measure of ICT-intensive users and specialists diverged. In particular, the share of broad ICTskilled employment is increasing in the EU15, but decreasing in the United States, Canada and Australia. The relatively recent phenomenon of the offshoring of IT-related and backoffice activities could be an explanatory factor, as could diverging trends in technology adoption and integration reducing employment of some ICT-intensive using occupations.” (Van Welsum and Wickery, 2005:19). This study also pointed out that ICT-skilled employment differs a lot between different economic sectors. E.g. financial intermediation services, research and development have a very large share of ICT-related employment, whereas personal services tend to have a low share.

ICT producing industries are:

• ICT manufacturing
• Cable and telcom
• TV and radio manufacturing
• Renting and sale of ICT products
• ICT services
• Telecommunications

Pilat and Lee (2001) defined the following ICT using industries:

• Manufacturing:
  • Printing and publishing
  • Electronic equipment
  • Machinery and equipment
• Services:
  • Communications
  • Whole sale and retail trade
  • Finance
  • Insurance
  • Business services

Household access to Internet

According to OECD (2008), in OECD countries, Broadband and ICT access and use by households and individuals in 2007 was between 50% (France) and 83% (Netherlands).

Data from OECD also shows discrepancies between education levels. E.g. an interesting table from OECD Information Technology Outlook 2008: (Complete Edition - ISBN 9789264055544) shows that these can be quite high in some countries:

	 	 Low	Medium	High
Iceland	 78.8	86.9	96.6
Sweden		 67.7	78.8	95.8
Norway		 45.8	79.0	95.3
Netherlands	 60.6	86.5	94.5
Luxembourg	 53.4	76.2	91.7
Denmark	 65.3	78.2	90.7
Finland	 57.8	73.2	89.9
United Kingdom	 30.3	73.1	88.8
Portugal	 16.4	77.0	85.1
Belgium	 37.6	62.1	83.9
Slovak Republic 26.9	55.0	81.0
Spain		 18.8	64.8	80.6
Austria	 31.9	58.5	79.9
Hungary	 12.1	51.4	79.0
Germany	 56.3	65.3	76.9
Italy		 14.0	52.6	73.5
Czech Republic	 25.7	28.4	72.7
Poland		 30.6	28.9	72.2
Ireland	 19.4	42.4	64.9
Greece	 	 5.9	29.1	57.5

Links

• OECD Key ICT Indicators
• ICT Skills and Employment

• ISCO - International Standard Classification of Occupations.

Bibliography

• European e-Skills Forum (2004), Synthesis Report, available at http://www.eskills2004.org

• Lavoie, M., and Roy, R. (1998), Employment in the knowledge-based economy: A growth accounting exercise for Canadaâ, R98-8E, Human Resource Development Canada, Applied Research Branch, June 1998.

• Lemaître, G. (2002), Measures of skill from Labour Force Studies â An assessment, OECD, Secretariat Working Document.

• Millar, J., (2001), Skills and employment research â Conceptual framework and methodology, STAR Issue Report 10, http://www.databank.it/star/list_issue/e.html.

• Van Welsum, D. and G. Vickery (2005), “New Perspectives on ICT Skills and Employment”, DSTI Information Economy Working Paper, DSTI/ICCP/IE(2004)10/FINAL, OECD, Paris; available at: www.oecd.org/sti/ICT-employment

• OECD (2004). Information Technology Outlook 2004, OECD, Paris.

• OECD (2009). OECD Communications Outlook 2009, OECD, Paris. ISBN 978-92-64-05983-2. Available at www.oecd.org/sti/telecom/outlook

• OECD (2008). Information Technology Outlook 2008, OECD, Paris. ISBN 978-92-64-05553-7. Available at www.oecd.org/sti/ito.

• Peneder, M. (2003), The employment of IT personnelâ, National Institute Economic Review, No. 184, April 2003.

• Pilat, D., and Lee, F. C. (2001), âProductivity growth in ICT-producing and ICT-using industries: A source of growth differentials in the OECD?, STI Working Papers 2001/4, DSTI/DOC(2001)4, Paris.)