Employment and working conditions in the bioeconomy in Finland and Germany

This working paper introduces a method of measuring the bioeconomy for the purpose of
assessing the social structure and working conditions of persons working in bioeconomic
jobs. Previous measurements only allow aggregate level estimations of financial and economic contributions of the bioeconomy. The job classification suggested here is suitable for analysing individual level survey data. By combing information from the sector of economic activity with data on occupation three types of jobs can be distinguished: jobs in the core bioeconomy, jobs in the wider bioeconomy and jobs that are outside the bioeconomy. The classification is applied to a) an analysis of the social structure and working conditions in the Finnish bioeconomy and b) a study of the composition and changes of employment in the German bioeconomy in comparison to the approach of the ‘Pilot Report on Monitoring the German Bioeconomy’ (Bringezu, Banse, Ahmann et al. 2020). Results show that in the bioeconomy atypical forms of employment occur more often while overall job numbers are declining.