NATIONAL AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC ROLE OF IT AND ICT SECTORS

At national level, the number of people employed in the sector exceeds 160,000, which is about 7% in the labor market, while directly contributing about 12% to the GDP. Being integral part of production and services, it is an unavoidable and fundamental factor of competitiveness. The growth of the sector (~ 6%) also exceeds GDP growth rate (~ 2%).

In the field of IT services, slightly more than 90% of businesses are micro-enterprises, approx. 7% are small businesses and less than 1% belong to the medium-sized enterprise category, both nationwide and in the region. Earlier statistics have shown that more than 300 companies of the 800 IT / ICT companies operating in the Southern Great Plain region acually operate in Csongrád county, and nearly 75% of the enterprises in Csongrád county are located in Szeged.

The fact, that the weight of the IT / ICT sector is significantly above the national average in the Szeged and Kecskemét sub-regions of the Southern Great Plain region, has been supported by earlier researches. At regional level both community economic development and investment promotion strategies put a srong focus on the IT / ICT sector.

"Resulting from the market development of recent years ICT is a flagship area in Szeged. There is a nationally demonstrable concentration of ICT enterprises here, which is a strategic strength and an area to be developed further. Based on empirical research, the information technology service (TEÁOR 62) is comparatively high in the Szeged (LQ = 2.49) and Kecskemét (LQ = 1.65) sub-regions, compared to other rural parts of Hungary. Clustering potential of this sector in the Szeged region has already been pointed out earlier. "(Source: Szeged's Investment Promotion Strategy)

„In recent years, the IT / ICT sector has been shifting from the labor market equilibrium towards the demand side both in the EU and in the region, and this tendency can be detected in Hungary too. Growth of the sector mainly is not determined by constraints on the demand-side anymore. The main difficulty lies in the limitations of human resource capacities. This is a source of pressure on IT sector operators both in terms of employer-employee contracts and the expectations related to wages. This has been supported by the national research of IVSZ and Bell Research (2015), as well as the Labor Market Survey of the Employment Pact (2016).

REGIONAL ECONOMIC ROLE OF THE MEMBERS OF SOFTWARE INNOVATION POLE CLUSTER

The economic weight and role of the cluster is determined by

• the absolute and relative values of financial (turnover, profit) and non-financial quantitative parameters (e.g. number of persons employed) on the one hand,
• and added value of the developments, service-side value creation, regional integration and indirect value formation on the other hand
  • through their cooperation (the use of each other's development and their role in knowledge sharing)
  • and related services (e.g. training, education)

Financial and non-financial quantitative data reflect the cluster's economic role the most precisely. Turnover and staffing has been planned on the basis of the 2012 and 2013 performance of the members.

MOST IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL MARKETS AND POSITION OF MEMBERS OF SOFTWARE INNOVATION POLE CLUSTER

EU member states and non-EU countries offer significant, directly-accessible markets for software development. In the software markets, maintaining the market position requires considerable continuous innovation activity, which is well reflected in the summary presented below, showing that cluster member companies are present in several countries across the globe with innovative products and services delivered in different sectors.