EMPLOYMENT IN THE MARKET ECONOMY IN ... - Eurostat - Europa

Chapter 4 — Employment and wages in industry by region
The SBS contain data for regions within EU Member States as
well as national aggregates. Regions are defined at both a
NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 level and the analysis here focuses on
the latter in both the EU15 countries and the new Member
States as well as in Bulgaria and Romania (see Box, p. 61). Although
the regional data included in the SBS are for a more
restricted set of variables, they can, nevertheless, be used to
give an indication of regional variations in certain aspects of
the structure of the market economy. Data, however, are
mainly confined to industry and are available only for a limited
number of service activities.
The aim here is twofold. First, it is, to examine the relative
numbers employed in particular sectors of activity, specifically
for selected manufacturing industries, and, secondly,
to assess the variation in average wages in these
sectors across regions in different countries. This focus
rather than a comparison of regional wage levels across
the EU as a whole has been chosen in order to limit the extent
of the variation being examined. As indicated by the
data on labour costs in the previous chapter, therefore,
average wages are many times higher in some of the
EU15 countries than in most of the new Member States.
Regional variations, therefore, tend to be dominated by
national variations.
The manufacturing industries chosen for study are textiles
and clothing (NACE, sub-section DB), basic metals
— ie iron and steel — (NACE, division 27), machinery and
equipment (NACE, division 29), electrical machinery and
equipment (NACE. division 31) and transport equipment
(NACE, sub-section DM). These together cover many of
the main types of industry (capital intensive as well as labour-intensive,
technologically advanced as well as relatively
basic). The number employed in each of these in
each region is, first, related to working-age population to
give an indication of the relative importance of the industry
concerned for jobs in different parts of the enlarged
EU. Population of working age, therefore, is effectively
used as a scalar to enable meaningful comparisons to be
made of employment in different regions in the selected
industries. In consequence, the resulting measure is not
affected by the size of the region per se or by the scale of
business activities in the regional economy (as comparisons
of the share of the selected industries in market sector
employment would be).
Regional employment
in the selected industries
Textiles and clothing
The number employed in textiles and clothing (NACE
sub-section DB) is relatively high in most parts of the new
Member States, as well as in Bulgaria and Romania. The
main exceptions are in the capital city regions (Praha,
Bratislavsky, Közép-Magyarország, where Budapest is
situated, and Mazowieckie, where Warsaw is located).
The industry is also a relatively large source of employment
in Portugal (in Norte, it employs 7% of working-age
population), northern and central parts of Italy, Cataluña
in Spain, Flanders in Belgium and in the East Midlands,
North West and West Yorkshire in the UK.
Basic metals
Employment in basic metals (NACE division 27) is generally
lower than in textiles and clothing (only around 40% of employment
in the enlarged EU) and is concentrated in different
regions. It accounts for a relatively large number of jobs in
Moravskoslezko in the east of the Czech Republic (5% of
working-age population), Východné Slovensko and Stredné
Slovensko in Slovakia (in the east and centre, respectively),
Közép-Dunántúl in the west of Hungary and Slaskie in the
south of Poland as well as in Yugozapaden (where Sofia is situated)
and Vest in Romania. In the EU15 countries, it is relatively
important in Düsseldorf, Arnsberg and Saarland in
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