This report provides an overview of ICT skills and employment across OECD economies and analyses some of the impacts on economic performance. It presents a new approach to capturing the diffusion of ICTs in the economy.

This report, part of the 2004 OECD IT Outlook, is the first in a series looking at the distribution of ICT skilled employment in the economy, various ways in which ICT skills needs can be satisfied, and the role of ICT-skilled employment in international services sourcing, or offshoring.

Services are increasingly tradable, mainly as a result of rapid technological advances, in particular in information and communication technologies, and continuing liberalisation of trade in services. This has led to the relatively new phenomenon of global services sourcing or offshoring. This...