Poland to be top performer of knowledge nations in CEE

Poland was one of only two countries in Central and Eastern Europe which did not lose brain business jobs during 2020 but instead added 6 600 knowledge-intensive jobs during the year.  Only a handful of other countries in Europe managed to increase their number of jobs in highly knowledge-intensive industries during 2020. The main strength of Poland is advertising & market research

The ECEPR and Nordic Capital Brain Business Jobs Index measures the share of the working-age population across Europe employed in highly knowledge-intensive enterprises, in 31 countries and 284 regions. Before the corona crisis, Poland experienced a significant boost in brain business jobs. Between 2012 and 2019, Poland added 249 700 jobs in knowledge-intensive companies. By adding a further 6 600 brain business jobs during, 2020, Poland keeps this strong trend going. Because of this, the concentration of the population employed in knowledge-intensive occupations decreased slightly during the year, from 4.1 percent in 2019 to 4.2 in 2020. 

Central and Eastern Europe experienced a significant loss of brain business jobs in 2020 

In Central and Eastern Europe as a whole, approximately 58,400 brain business jobs were lost between 2019 and 2020. While Estonia and Poland were successful in adding jobs during the turbulent year, the rest of the area suffered significant setbacks. Notably, Romania lost a large amount of brain business jobs during the year. 

The region with the highest concentration of brain business jobs, the Slovakian capital region of Bratislava, has an impressive unemployment rate of 2.4 percent. This does not seem to be a coincidence.  A comparison of 281 European regions shows that a strong link exists between high brain business jobs concentration and low unemployment and that this link is driven by regions with low brain business jobs concentration. Amongst regions with up to 50 brain business jobs per 1,000 working-age population, a straight-forward linear regression shows that 28 percent of the variation of unemployment can be explained by differences in brain business jobs concentration.

According to Dr. Nima Sanandaji, president of the ECEPR, the overall trend is that Central and Eastern European countries are catching up to Northern and Western Europe. Knowledge-intensive firm occupation is also growing in several Southern European countries, such as Cyprus, Portugal, and Malta: 

“Since 2014, Cyprus has had an almost 50 percent increase of brain business jobs per capita. Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Portugal, and Bulgaria have experienced a growth of a third or more. The cost of labor is a main driving force. Brain business jobs are growing in places that combine an ample supply of talent with lower wage costs,” Sanandaji said.

(WBJ).