Abstract

This chapter analyses the impact of employees’ e-skills on wages. The estimation of a logit model on Tunisian data allowed us to identify two main results. First, digital skills are very important and required in the Tunisian labour market. Second, informational and strategic digital skills play a determining role in wages evolution.

Keywords:ICT, e-skills, wages, technological bias, inequality.

Introduction

Tunisia is currently going through a complicated period on all fronts. The main difficulties encountered by the country are linked to the health crisis and the economic models put in place at the end of the Arab Spring, demographics, poor governance and human capital. This, despite the good quantitative performance achieved in recent decades, contrasts with the country's difficulty in ensuring strong and sustainable growth. This divergence is partly explained by the low quality of human capital and the mismatch between the supply and demand for skills in the labour market.

Skills development is a necessity to put Tunisia on the path to recovery. However, the jobs and skills required of today are not those of yesterday. The development of the digital economy has rapidly changed the labour market. The capacity of Tunisian companies to grow and face competition has become increasingly dependent on the efficient and innovative use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Therefore, digital skills are now essential to boost the competitiveness, employability and productivity of the workforce. These developments underline the importance of identifying this type of skill.

This chapter provides a contribution in this area. Using data collected in 2020 on the Tunisian labour market, it analyses the impact of employees’ digital skills on wages. Such an analysis makes it possible both to highlight the importance of e-skills, the kind of digital skills required in the Tunisian labour market, and to provide certain recommendations to company managers and political decision makers in order to strengthen this integral part of the human capital.

The estimation of a logit model on Tunisian data allowed us to identify two main results. The first is that digital skills are very important and required in the Tunisian labour market. The second indicates that informational and strategic digital skills play a determining role in the evolution of wages.