European nations may be focusing on how to address the immediate economic trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but beneath the surface, even larger changes are reshaping the distribution of knowledge jobs in Europe.
In collaboration with Nordic Capital, a leading Nordic private equity firm, where one of us is the chief operating officer, the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR), where one of us is the director, has recently mapped the locations of knowledge-intensive jobs in Europe. The index examines jobs in four knowledge-intensive industries: the tech sector, information and communications technology, advanced services, and creative professions. In measuring what percentage of the working population in 31 European countries and 283 regions work in these “brain business jobs,” the study finds significant shifts in the geographical distribution of Europe’s knowledge industries.
