| Abstract: | The results of a number of studies sponsored by the Californian Commission on Industrial Innovation concerning the job generating potential of four major high technology sectors are reviewed. The prospect for increased employment opportunities may not be encouraging. Likewise a recent Melbourne based case study finds that businesses which introduce new technologies coupled with reorganisation methods (an increasingly common strategy as companies strive to remain profitable) have predominantly negative effects on employment. On this basis local economic planning proposals which rely heavily on small firm sector attempts to promote industrial innovation are regarded as suspect. Instead, it is argued, local policies designed to create jobs would do better to concentrate on community service programmes. In addition where subsidies to industrial innovation persist they should at least be directed at medium to large size locally based firms through the medium of Development Corporations or Enterprise Boards. |
