Women Make Up Nearly Half of the Employed in Digital Industry in Bulgaria
Women make up 44.6% of the workforce in Bulgaria’s technology sector, Financial Times wrote in an article dedicated to main statistical findings on the tech workforce in the EU. The technology sector is one of the fastest-growing in the country and holds the second-highest proportion of women as % of the total employment in the EU after Lithuania. The average for the bloc, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, is 32%. In general, Eastern European countries have the highest percentage of women working in the sector of high-tech industry.
We now have lots of female C-level managers in the digital industry. They’re very visible in the tech community and in society, FT quotes Sasha Bezuhanova, Founder of the social innovation platform Move.bg. According to Ms Bezuhanova the country also has growing numbers of female founders of startups. Between 10 and 12% of Bulgarian start-ups are founded by women.
More statistical findings from Eurostat on the topic*:
In 2015, 2.4 million people were employed in high-tech manufacturing, corresponding to 1.1 % of total employment. Overall, roughly one out of three employees in the high-tech sectors was a woman in 2015. However, the share of women was different in manufacturing and services:
- There were more women in high-tech manufacturing than in manufacturing in general– 29.4 % of employees in manufacturing were women compared to 38.2 % of high-tech manufacturing.
- Seven countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Poland and Portugal) reported that nearly 50 % or more of those employed in high-tech manufacturing were women.
- In the high-tech knowledge-intensive services, the proportion of women (30.4 %) was lower than in the total service sector (54.4 %).
- In particular, the activities computer programming, scientific research and development, telecommunications and corresponding occupations still seem to attract more men than women.
The number of persons employed as ICT specialists in the EU-28 grew by 39.5 % during the period from 2006 to 2016, which was more than 10 times as high as the corresponding increase (3.6 %) for total employment. In 2016, some 8.2 million persons worked as ICT specialists across the EU-28. Across the whole of the EU-28, ICT specialists accounted for 3.7 % of the total workforce in 2016; this was 37 % higher than the share recorded in 2006.
*Data extracted in December 2017. ICT specialists are defined as persons who have the ability to develop, operate and maintain ICT systems and for whom ICTs constitute the main part of their job
