Technological innovation and employment:: Data from a decade in Spain

This paper analyses how technological change is affecting employment in Spain. Focussing especially on New Information Technology, the latest technological innovations and their effects on employment, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, are considered. Subsequent attention highlights one of the principal problems revealed by the implementation of new technologies in Spanish firms: a shortfall in appropriately qualified workers. This gap could be bridged in two ways: by increasing flexibility and by increasing employee training programmes. Both are dealt with in the final part of this paper. Use has been made of data corresponding to the Spanish economy from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.