International trade barriers and regional employment: the case of a no-deal Brexit

We use the World Input–Output Database (WIOD) combined with regional sectoral employment data to estimate the potential regional employment effects of international trade barriers. We study the case of a no-deal Brexit in which imports to the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) would be subject to tariffs and non-tariff trade costs. First, we derive the decline in UK final goods imports from the EU from industry-specific international trade elasticities, tariffs and non-tariff trade costs. Using input–output analysis, we estimate the potential output and employment effects for 56 industries and 43 countries on the national level. The absolute effects would be largest in big EU countries which have close trade relationships with the UK, such as Germany and France. However, there would also be large countries outside the EU which would be heavily affected via global value chains, such as China, for example. The relative effects (in percent of total employment) would be largest in Ireland followed by Belgium. In a second step, we split up the national effects on the NUTS-2 level for EU member states and additionally on the county (NUTS-3) level for Germany. The share of affected workers varies between 0.03% and 3.4% among European NUTS-2 regions and between 0.15% and 0.4% among German counties. A general result is that indirect effects via global value chains, i.e., trade in intermediate inputs, are more important than direct effects via final demand.

Socio-Geographical Concept of Labor Market Monitoring and Regional Employment Policy Formation

The necessity of socio-geographical concept elaboration and implementation for labor market monitoring and regional employment policy formation is grounded from the socio-geographical point of view. It has been established that: 1) the versatility and complex nature of the labor market development specificated by natural and socio-economic factors of important geographical content has determined its socio-geographical essence; 2) the development of the concept requires different approaches, principles and research methods, including socio-geographical, taking into account various labor market factors; 3)the concept should take into account the influence of the laws of the production and human settlement territorial organisation, as well as the level of development and structure of the region's economy; 4)the concept should take into account the peculiarities of the labor market formation and development in the economic system agricultural sector as well as the impact of current risks and challenges on the social and labor sphere of public life; 5) the implementation of such a concept has to provide the balancing of labor supply and demand within the country and its regions; 6)regional employment policy should be aimed at rational use of the territory labor potential.