Introduction 

In reaction to the global financial and economic crisis that started in 2008, job creation has become a main priority of EU policy. In this context, ECF has decided to commission academic consultancy Transport & Mobility Leuven to carry out a study that quantifies the contribution of the cycling sector to job creation in Europe. This study has been realised with support from ECF’s partners in the Cycling Industry Club. It continues the work that has been initiated by ECF with the report on the cycling economy, estimating the economic benefit of cycling at € 205 bn per year for the EU-27.

So far, investments in cycling have mostly been driven by factors like the need for a more efficient transport system, congestion relief, health benefits or improved access. Employment in the cycling sector has rarely been used as an argument at the international level, except for cycling tourism. The aim of the study is to show that employment in the cycling sector is a co-benefit of investments in cycling, and also a benefit in its own right.

Main findings

We estimate the jobs in the European cycling sector today at around 650.000 full-time equivalents (EU-27, excluding Croatia). With a doubling of bicycle modal share, the employment potential of cycling jobs represents more than 1.000.000 full-time equivalents. 

This study takes into account jobs in the bicycle industry, bicycle retail, bicycle infrastructure and bicycle tourism sector. We find that bicycle tourism is by far the largest contributor to cycling jobs. 

High number of jobs per million of turnover

The bicycle sector (left) has significantly higher employment rates than the other transport sector. Per million of turnover, a bicycle manufacturer employs 3 times more people than a car manufacturer.

An opportunity for a more inclusive Europe

The qualitative evaluation of jobs in the bicycle sector shows that a number of them do not require high levels of qualification. By providing easily accessible employment for groups that are disadvantaged on the labour market because of their low qualification levels, this offers an opportunity to contribute to the objectives of an inclusive Europe.

Cyclists are better for the local economy

Another interesting point about (functional) cycling is that it contributes probably more to the local economy than the use of other transport modes. Cyclists go more to local shops, restaurants, cafés or other local businesses than users of other transport modes.

Caveats

Not all employment in the cycling sector taken into account

The present study only looks at job creation in certain key sectors of the cycling economy. However, in certain sectors there was very limited or no data available on the amount of cycling jobs. For example, for cycling services the amount of jobs that we included could be an underestimate because data on this sector was so sparse. Including data for these fields would increase the total number of jobs and could be the subject of further research.

Furthermore, due to issues of data availability, the newest EU Member State Croatia is not included in this study. For the EU-28, the number of jobs in the cycling sector is therefore probably slightly higher than presented here. 

In the manufacturing sector, the job creation effect of doubling the modal share of cycling might be underestimated. The reason for this is that with increasing modal shares, bike prices go up which could imply that cyclists buy less cheap Asian bikes and more bikes which are assembled in Europe. Within the limits of the study, we were not able to investigate trade flows and therefore our numbers will not pick up such an element.

Finally, the study takes only direct effects into account. Indirect effects are not taken into account. An indirect effect is for example the jobs created at the steel or aluminium producer who provides input for the bicycle manufacturer.

Room for improvement of the estimates

This study estimates the gross job effect. It does not account for the fact that if people did not cycle, there could be other jobs replacing cycling employment. The net job effect would take this into account. As a result, the job growth numbers that we indicate for a doubling of bicycle modal share should not be interpreted as indicating a net employment growth numbers for the entire economy. They should be considered as the increase in cycling jobs, whereas jobs in other sectors may diminish in compensation. Nevertheless, our calculations have also shown that job intensity per 1M€ turnover is higher for the cycling economy than for other transport modes.

Also, we want to stress that our estimates for employment growth potential in case of a doubling of bicycle modal share are based on a relatively simple statistical model. We correlate current modal share with cycling economy indicators in a cross-section of EU27 countries, and subsequently use these correlations to estimate the economic impact of increasing modal shares by extrapolation. This approach leaves the room open for statistical problems, such as endogeneity bias, which would imply that we over-estimate the employment effects of increasing modal shares. However, limited data availability and limited resources have motivated the current approach for this study.

The numbers we provide are based on available data and statistics, completed with calculations and analyses. The quality of our estimates are obviously linked to the quality of the data that we use. Quality of available data and statistics greatly vary.

• Data on employment in the manufacturing and retail sector are good.
• Estimates on tourism sector can be improved, especially the link between an increase in modal share and the increase in bicycle tourism.
• Data on current bicycle modal share and growth potential in bicycle use are poor. No consistent time series are currently available in Europe. This means that there is much room for improvement of the estimate of job impacts of an increased modal share of cycling.