The Role of Small Firms as Job Providers in the Information Technology Sector: a Preliminary Analysis*

This paper analyses the role of small firms in the evolution of the information technology sector in Finland. This sector consists of relevant manufacturing and telecommunications industries as well as relevant wholesale and service industries. The investigation period extends from 1993 to 1997. We find that, as a whole, large firms create more jobs than do smaller firms. In contrast, our regression analysis suggests that, after controlling for observed and unobserved covariates, the growth rate of employment for individual small firms is higher than that for large ones. We thus conclude that while large firms create more jobs on aggregate, the associate effect of size on the growth rate of individual firms is negative, providing that other growth factors are controlled for. kasvavat nopeammin kuin suuremmat.