Following the impact on regional renewal and employment ascribed to rapidly growing firms (high-impactfirms, HIFs), this paper argues that little is still known in economic geography and business studies todayregarding the mechanisms influencing growth of such firms and, hence, the potential impact on regionalemployment. The aim of this paper is thus to explore how the qualitative content of skills (i.e. the degree ofsimilarity, relatedness and unrelatedness) recruited to a firm during a period of fast growth influences itsfuture success. Our findings, based on a sample of 1,589 HIFs in the Swedish economy, suggest that it is notonly the number of people employed that matters in aiding the understanding of the future destiny of the firms– but also, more importantly, it is the scope of the skills recruited and their proximity to related industries.
Using matched employer-employee data on roughly 429,000 workers made redundant from large plant closures or major downsizing in Sweden between 1990 and 2005, this paper analyses the role of the regional industry mix (specialization, related and unrelated variety) in the likelihood of returning to work. The results show that a high presence of same or related industries speeds up the re-employment process, while high concentrations of unrelated activities do not. The role of related activities is particularly evident in the short run and in regions with high unemployment. Consequently, the prospect of successful diversification is enhanced in regions with related industries.