The connection between information society and statistics
The paper is dealing with the challenges of the information society to the statistics. The new sectors are: the ICT sector and the telecommunications sector containing telecommunications equipment as well as services. The study presents data on the information technological exports and imports; R(D, and the communications equipments of the households. The Reader can get information on the new tasks of the Central Statistical Office and on the problems namely the CSO is at the same time information producer and data supplier of the information economy.
From the Industrial Society to the Information Society
The study deals with theoretical foundation of the emerging so-called "Information Society". Most important resources of the earlier type of modern society were the capital (property) and the labour. That type of the society was described as an Industrial Society characterized by mass production, mechanization, automatization, taylorism, fordism etc. From the second part of the XXth century some radical changes have been gone within industrial societies. Information, knowledge have became most important resources of the economic and social production. The transformation of structures of the modern economy on the basis of knowledge as a productive force constitutes the material basis and justification for designating advanced modern society, as an Information Society. Nowadays, it is increasingly clear that information and knowledge are constitutive identity-defining mechanism of modern society. Among different technologies, the "information technology" has been emphasized. In the second part, the author analyses some social consequences of the new production mode (employment, work organization, changes in culture, transformation of the capital and labour, new perception of social space and time etc.).
The knowledge base of the economy - from the view-point of labour
The technological culture of the average Hungarian employee paired with its price has been a traditionally attractive competitive advantage of the country. The study contrastively draws into focus the importance of liberal arts in helping the human capital of the workforce catch up to the attained level of technological knowledge. Language skills and the overall patterns of multicultural communication constitute the next-generation factor of global economic competitiveness. This is particularly true for the relative latecomers in the European accession process. Unfortunately, these skills are far below of the scientific and engineering culture. The author encourages the strategic re-engineering of higher education to facilitate this change looming ahead of us.