What is Skills for the Digital Economy

After a brief survey of the international literature on skill-related issues that may either support or threaten the further development of ICT-based applications this article provides a picture of the state-of-the-art of the professional skills supplied by ICT specialists in 11 EU countries based on data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills. The first part of the empirical analysis focuses on the skills profile of ICT personnel from EU countries and examines to what extent the higher skills displayed by ICT specialists depend on a different distribution of demographic characteristics and job characteristics compared to the rest of the workforce. The second part of the empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between skills and wages and tests whether employers recognize an occupation-specific wage premium to ICT specialists. The results of the proposed empirical analyses confirm the existence of significant differences between skill profiles and earnings determinants of ICT specialists compared to other workers.