Sociedade, Tecnologia e Inovação Empresarial - Presidente da ...

This, increasingly massive component of employment, which benefitedfrom the rise of public budgets in the 50’s and 60’s, has continued togrow over the period of slow growth of the 80’s and early 90’s. It correspondsto a wide range of good and «disadvantageous» jobs, and thecombination and relative importance of sub-sectors in the field is verymuch country specific. One could say that the pattern of these servicesthat we currently observe is very much path-dependent, basedon services provided somewhere in the past on the basis of some specificinitial conditions.Conclusions: In search of a new European comparativeadvantage in the Knowledge-Driven SocietyThe general policy perspective for the various European countriessketched out above, appears thus centred around a set of institutionaland structural changes taking into account their specific linkages witha new growth regime associated with the knowledge driven society.It was argued that four areas of structural policies can help in adjustingthe European countries to the new conditions of growth and employmentlinked to the «knowledge-driven society». First policies with respectto labour, education and training, second policies with respect to intermediate,large network services, third policies with respect to the institutionalset-up of the science and technology system and fourth policieswith respect to services, including both business and welfare services.The increasing internationalisation of the economies has led in thelast two decades to give priority to competitiveness. Policy interventionson labour markets in Europe have, in the first half of the80’s, focused on the objective of labour market flexibility to accompanythe restructuring of manufacturing industries. De-industrialisationhas been facilitated in various ways by this increased flexibility.It allowed countries to reallocate their labour force to sectors andniches less exposed to external competition. This restructuring gavealso more importance to activities, the competitiveness of whichrelied more on non-price factors. It contributed to shift the focus ofDebates3 0 6Sociedade, Tecnologia e Inovação Empresarial