Knowledge, Innovation and Agglomeration - regionalized multiple indicators and evidence from Brazil



(5) indicators of scientific production based on data from the Institute for Scientific Information
(ISI) on the publication of scientific articles.5

The indicators for skilled workers derived from the 2002 RAIS database were classified in
accordance with the categories of the Brazilian Classification of Occupations (CBO).6 Taking the
definition of a job as a set of tasks, operations and other activities that constitute the duties of a
worker and result in the production of goods and services, we selected the categories in Level 3
of the CBO, “Basic Occupational Groups”, with a technical and technical-scientific profile
relating in some way to science, technology and innovation (ST&I). Thus the occupations were
selected so as to include those relating to the generation and diffusion of new technical and
scientific knowledge, such as engineer, physicist, chemist and biologist, as well as technical and
operational occupations involving skills that are relevant to the innovation process. The rationale
for choosing these occupations is the broad consensus in the specialized literature regarding the
importance of tacit knowledge and the specific knowledge embodied in worker skills and routines
for the generation and diffusion of innovations. We selected 63 Basic Groups from a total of 355.

The next step was to divide the selected groups into three subgroups in accordance with
the type of occupation and the corresponding functions within firms: (1) technological
occupations, such as engineer, physicist, chemist and biologist, involving a higher level of formal
education and professionals who usually perform high-level functions in firms’ innovative
activities; (2) technical occupations, such as specialized technician in certain areas, requiring
formal education to intermediate level but involving professionals who perform an important role
in the firm’s hierarchy and the more simple stages of new knowledge generation and diffusion;
and (3) operational occupations, such as machine assembler or operator, requiring a low level of
formal education but with a high tacit and specific skill content.

With regard to the third subgroup (operational occupations), it should be noted that the
decision to select these was based on two complementary criteria. The first is the recognition, in
congruence with the large body of research on ST&I in the literature, that the knowledge
embodied in worker skills and operating routines plays a fundamental role in the generation and
diffusion of innovations, characterized as a social and collective process. The second is that,
especially in metalworking-machine manufacturing and electronics, both of which industries
drive diffusion of technology throughout the economic system,7 these operational occupations
require a higher level of technical knowledge. Hence the importance given to them in the
selection.

The results show the distribution of skilled occupations in Sao Paulo State by
microgeographical region, as can be seen in
Map 1. This makes it clear that the creation of
technology-related jobs is stronger in industrially developed regions. It is possible to infer a close
correlation between the number of jobs created in this category and ST&I activities in which
firms are engaged in these regions, including service providers. It also shows that the Sao Paulo

5 Access to some of the databases was facilitated by the collaboration of the following people: Dr. Mariana
Rebouças, IBGE, who supplied special tabulations of data from PINTEC; Prof. Eduardo Albuquerque, Federal
University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), who supplied INPI’s patent database and with whom it was possible to share a
methodological discussion on the production of regionalized indicators for patents; and Prof. José Ângelo Gregolin,
UFSCar, who provided data on scientific production.

6 The CBO is subdivided into Major Groups, Subgroups, Basic Groups, and Occupations. The RAIS data can be
disaggregated down to the Basic Group level, also termed Primary Group, Unitary Group or Occupational Family.
This level covers occupations that are strictly related in terms of the type of work involved and the level of skill
required. Altogether 355 Basic Occupational Groups (GBOs) are defined.

7 This is the case, for example, with “electronic equipment assembler”, an occupation that is typically operational but
requires a significant level of technical knowledge.



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