Structural changes as determinant of demand for human capital

Abstract

The study deals with a problem of changes in demand for human capital, that are caused by structural changes in Polish economy in the context of its convergence with the EU structures. There was assumed that structural features that are observed nowadays in the EU as a whole constitute a model for development of these countries that limit their development gap. Thus, a direction of transformation in branch relationships leads to convergence of Poland with other EU members and changes in branch relationships determine demand for human capital. The research was aimed at identification of the realised demand for human capital, concerning a level and a character of the resources. Considering the first aspect there was assumed that an indicator of a level of human capital engaged in economic processes is education of the employees. There were made comparisons of a share of highly educated employees in Poland and the EU, a structure of education in branches, as well as a share of employment in knowledge-intensive activities. The identified development tendencies showed decreasing development gap of Polish economy, connected with creation of a knowledge-based economy. The essential barrier of human capital absorption in Poland appears to be unfavorable structure of branches. The second aspect of the analysis was connected with a character of the engaged human capital, that was specified as basing on general or specific knowledge. To identify the character of knowledge there was assessed a concentration of occupations between branches and a share of professional groups in the specified branches. Disparities between Polish economy and the EU countries are described by a lower share of occupations and branches basing on a general knowledge in Poland. Meanwhile development trends show an increase of such kind of knowledge. A barrier to achieve cohesion within EU in this dimension also appeared to be the unfavorable branch relationships in Poland.