What drives the Vacancy Rate for Information Technology Workers?

This paper provides empirical evidence on both the magnitude and determinants of unfilled vacancies for information technology workers using cross-sectional data on 4150 German firms. Vacancies are defined as unfilled vacancies excluding vacancies created by replacement needs during the first half of the year 2000. The share of unfilled vacancies created by replacement needs is only about 20 percent indicating that high turnover rates are not the main reason for high vacancy rates. The adjusted job vacancy rate for ICT workers varies between 5.7 percent in the ICT sector and 6.7 percent in the non-ICT sector. The results of a generalized tobit model show that the adjusted vacancy rate mainly depends on the firm size, the share of ICT workers and actions taken to solve the ICT worker shortage in the past but not on the diffusion of ICT. In the ICT sector the decision to train apprentices in the new ICT occupations in the past seems to reduce the current vacancy rate. In the non-ICT sector a successful strategy to solve the ICT worker shortage appears to be increased internal training. Finally, in the non-ICT sector the common practice to completely outsource software programming significantly reduces the probability of unfilled vacancies.

Falk, Martin (2002), What drives the Vacancy Rate for Information Technology Workers?, Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik) 222, 4 , 401-420