Labour force building in a rapidly expanding sector

Abstract

Between 1991 and 2010, jobs in the knowledge-intensive IT services sector in Sweden increased from 30,000 to 104,000. Departing from recent theoretical insights suggesting that the skill composition of worker inflows is an indicator of knowledge relevant to employers, we investigate labour inflows into the sector. Who were the people getting jobs in this expanding sector? And, how were their skills valued by employers as the sector evolved? Our findings suggest that sectoral evolution was not reflected in how the skills of incoming workers were valued, but rather in who was hired into the sector. The paper suggests that the analysis of worker inflows is a tool for investigating the evolution of both sectors and their knowledge bases. It provides some lessons for industrial and educational policies regarding technologically turbulent industries, and takes the first step towards developing an approach that integrates industry dynamics with labour force sourcing and evolution.