Der Informationssektor in Österreich

Nilkroökonor)lische Ausrr irkurrgctr trcucr I
Während der erste punkt sich auf die (gesamtwirtschatlliche) Arbeitsproduktrvität bezieht'
stellt letzterer einen massiven Wachstumsfaktor dar Allerdings verschärft sich mit einfacher
und günstiger werdender Kommunikation und Koordination auch auf internationaler Ebene
ebenfalls die internationale Konkurrenzsituation. und zwar nicht mehr nur, wie bisher. im Pro-
duktionssektor. sondern auch im Bereich der Dienstletstungen
.,People sometimes tend to think that employment and labour productivity move
in opposite directions, i.e. a high growlh rate in labour productivity would be
associated with declining employment. This is sometimes true tn mature or declining
industries, such as mintng and agricuiture. However, historical)y, the
evidence is stfong that with new protlucts and senices a 'virtuous circle' of
high output grorvth. high emplovntent grouth and high labour productivit-v
growth tend to go together and to reinforce each other. This r|as the case. for
example, with textiles during the industrial revolution and with steel and automobiles
earlier this century. This is because the rapid diffi-rsion of llell ploducts
and processes is strongly associated with cost reduction and high tnconre and
price elasticiries whilst ICT ho tfit,tte prices haYe indeed been falling drarnatically
because of the falling cost of chips (bucking the world-u,ide inflationary
trends), .s.r/nt'al"e costs and prices have tended to rise. thus acting as a brake on
the diffusion of ICT systems. consequently, there are good reasons to believe
that rising software productivity would generate an even faster increase in software
entployment and not a reduction, as mrght appear at first sight [ ]
Enplolment in software and infornration sen'ices was one of tlie lastest gro"ving
categories in all OECD countries in the 1980s ln Japan enlployment grew'
fron about 75.000 in 1980 ro over 350,000 in 1990. ln the united states the
number of employees in 'computational data processing services' grew from
304.000 in 1980 to 835,000 in 1991. These oflicial estimates understate total
software employment because olthe dificulties of measuring software activities
in r.rer firms both in the United States and in Japan
The total number of people working in software activities of all kinds, i.e the
software industry, plus hardware firms. plus user firms is t\\ r) or three times as
great as the offlcral figures for the soflware 'industry'. ln the united States
where the specialised industry is strongest. there ate probably now ( 1994) about
two mrllion people employed in softrvare work In Japan there are nearlt a mil-
lion and in Western Europe well over two million [ . ]
,.There is thus no doubt that software and information services have heen one of
the fastest growing categories for new employment in the past decade and that