Employment Development in the Telecoms Sector After its Liberalisation

Liberalisation of the Austrian telecoms sector brought with it massive changes in employment and market dynamism. Altogether, the sector's employment declined slightly between 1998 and 2003, most steeply in 2000. While the fixed-line segment shed jobs, mobile providers almost tripled their employment. The study looks at these changes against a background of trends in investment, sales, prices and staff costs for the major and a few smaller-scale telecoms providers. Future labour demand will depend on the competitive situation and the sector's investment and innovation behaviour.