Job creation and job types - new evidence from Danish entrepreneurs

This booklet extends earlier analyses of the job creation of start-ups vs. established firms by taking into consideration the educational content of the jobs created and destroyed. It defines education-specific measures of job creation and job destruction at the firm level, and it uses these to construct a measure of "surplus job creation" defined as jobs created on top of any simultaneous destruction of similar jobs in incumbent firms in the same region and industry. Using Danish employer-employee data from 2002 to 2007, which identifies the start-ups and which covers almost the entire private sector, these measures provide a more nuanced assessment of the role of entrepreneurial firms in the job-creation process than previous studies. The findings show that while start-ups are responsible for the entire overall net job creation, incumbents account for more than a third of net job creation within high-skilled jobs. Moreover, start-ups "only" create around half of the surplus jobs, and even less of the high-skilled surplus jobs. Finally, this approach characterizes and identities differences across industries, educational groups, and regions. (Series: The Rockwool Foundation Research Unit - Study Paper - No. 100) Subject: Labor Studies, Business]