Abstract:

The purpose of the paper is to assess the relationship between the level and dynamics of economic development expressed in GDP per capita and the employment structure in clusters of EU states in 2008 and 2018, selected on the basis of two criteria: the employment share in economic sectors (Agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining and quarrying; Manufacturing; Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; water supply and construction; Services) and the employment share in industry sections of various technological advancement and in knowledge-intensive services. The country clustering was obtained by complete linkage method (Markowska and Strahl, 2020). The average GDP per capita and GDP dynamics were compared between these clusters of countries. The procedure proposed in the paper made it possible to: identify clusters of EU states with similar employment structures in selected sectors and sections as well as single states with completely different structures and assess the relationship between the analysed structures and the level and dynamics of economic development.