EU hires nearly 8 mln ICT specialists in 2014: Eurostat

Nearly 8 million persons were employed in the European Union (EU) in 2014 as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists, representing 3.7 percent of total employment, Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, said in a report issued on Thursday.

In recent years, both the number and the share of ICT specialists in total employment have continuously increased to better adapt to an ever digitalized world, said the report.

This profession is largely made up of men, accounting in 2014 for more than eight ICT specialists out of 10 employed in the EU.

It also employed mainly highly educated people, with more than half of ICT specialists in the EU having a tertiary education level.

In specific, ICT specialists were mainly employed in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, accounting for almost half of all ICT specialists employed in the EU in 2014. In relative terms, the highest shares in 2014 of ICT specialists in total employment were recorded in Finland and Sweden, followed by Luxembourg, Estonia and the Netherlands.

On the opposite, Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia registered the lowest proportions. Moreover, the number of ICT specialists rose by almost 1.2 million persons between 2011 and 2014 at the EU level, with their share in total employment growing from 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent.

The uptake of new information and communication technologies has been a significant driver of changes to both production methods and employment patterns, noted the report.

In light of the competitiveness of the European economy and EU employment strategies, policymakers and researchers feel a natural interest in the employment of ICT professionals, a small but strategically important segment of employment, said the report. Endit