The Relevance of Artificial Intelligence in the Digital and Green Transformation of Regional and Local Labour Markets across Europe. Perspectives on Employment, Training, Placement and Social Inclusion.

The “Decade of Action” to achieve sustainable development requires an appropriate functionality of regional and local labour markets as primary players of the digital and green transformation towards this shared strategic goal. The digital and green transformation of regional and local labour markets in Europe sets a fundamental orientation towards the future, which at the same time has to cope with existing challenges, some of which have been intensified by the pandemic. In this anthology, the functionalities of AI tools for the improvement of labour market functions, especially in respect to fair and socially sustainable work are explored. It is necessary to systematically specify where there is a need for action and how AI could contribute to solving them. Already known AI solutions should be taken into account and existing gaps should be identified. It is also of interest how the Public Employment Services (PES) could use AI tools to form their “new” role as regional and local nodes for labour market monitoring and consulting of labour market actors.

Transformations of Local and Regional Labour Markets across Europe in Pandemic and Post-pandemic times. Challenges for regional and local observatories

The COVID-19 health crisis has turned into a global economic crisis, putting at risk the health, jobs, and incomes of millions of people around the world. The real economic impact dimension of the pandemic is unknown yet, but what we already know is that the impact is already different at the  regional, and even local levels. Implicitly the consequences for the labour market will follow the same pattern, having heterogeneous effects according to the different industrial branches and  the level of jobs affected by restrictive measures.

The different level and speed of labour market disruption at the regional and local level requires different measures and adaptative policies based on real-time evidence. For that purpose, regional and local labour market observatories are most appropriate instruments to further provide broad, reliable, and targeted information on the current and future developments of the labour markets in their region or locality for policy decision makers.

The Importance of SMEs as Innovators of Sustainable Inclusive Employment: New Evidence from Regional Labour Markets

SMEs are the backbone of the European economy, but in regional and local labour market monitoring approaches their specificities are not yet well considered. As SMEs have to compete with larger companies for human resources, they develop creative strategies for recruiting and retaining employees. This overall flexible approach proves to be a good tactic for staying in business, e.g. during a pandemic.
This publication delivers insights on the statistical relevance of SMEs and their importance for the functioning of regional and local labour markets. Additionally, it offers an organisational perspective on specific conditions for human resource management within European, national, regional and local policy frameworks. Most of the contributions in this anthology show insights drawn from the current COVID-19 pandemic. This perspective leads to further discussions on how these insights can be used to develop new concepts for regional and local labour market monitoring beyond the pandemic.