Expansion of direct investment and resilience of Serbian labour market: A regional and sectoral perspective

In recent years, Serbia has established itself as a leading destination for FDI thanks to its generous policy aimed at attracting direct investment. In this paper we look at the labour market effects of the policy of incentivised direct investment, first from a sectoral and regional perspective, and then by taking a holistic view at its impact on the overall labour market and economic development. We find that this policy has contributed to overall sectoral rebalancing of the labour market by increasing manufacturing jobs. It has also contributed to regional labour market rebalancing, most notably in improving the quality of employment in less developed regions and in stabilizing the shares of regional wage funds. Still, labour market, educational and infrastructure cleavages between regions remain very large. The transformational potential of Serbian labour market is far from being fully exploited, and Serbia still needs to sustain high level of investment in manufacturing jobs while at the same time supporting the gradual shift toward high-technology investment.

Union Organising in the Context of Regional Labour Market Decline: The Case of Nautilus International

Over the past few decades the impact of globalisation on society and industry at the national level has been immense and has been studied and extensively documented in the literature. Some of the major benefits and losses accruing from economic globalisation, particularly since the late 1970s have been debated by dominant political economy commentators (see e.g. Harvey 2005; Held et al. 1999; Strange 1996; Scholte 2000; Stiglitz 2002; Giddens 2002; Chomsky 2017). An important aspect of the globalising process has been the extensive restructuring of production and distribution patterns in search of cheaper resources, through aggressive outsourcing and offshoring. The result for many national economies, particularly advanced industrial states, has been a drastic decline in traditional industries affecting both labour and capital (Dunning 1993; Beck 2005; Perraton 2019). This chapter examines the decline in the seafaring labour markets of the so-called Traditional Maritime Countries (TMN), and the implications for union organising focusing on the UK and its seafaring labour. It examines the creation of Nautilus International (NI) Union via a merger of unions for maritime professionals across different countries in Europe initially beginning with Great Britain, the Netherlands and later Switzerland. This was a uniquely strategic response to declining membership and weakening organising capacity. Some of the key challenges associated with unions trying to organise and represent their members in the context of industrial and labour market decline are explored.

The regional labour market: demography and economy of the Republic of Karelia

The interaction between demographic and economical factors of the development of the regional labour market is being considered. The analysis of the dynamics of key economical-demographic indexes is completed on the base of the wholly period of market transformation. The idea that the market transformations determined not only the structural changes of the economy, but also the adequate intersectoral displacement of labour resources and so the labour sphere optimization is approved. The defining reaction of the labour market on the structural dynamics of the economy caused the growth of institutional variety of employment’s forms.

Labour market polarisation as a localised process: evidence from Sweden

The present article creates a link between contemporary labour market polarisation and regional divergence and analyses the spatial patterns of labour market polarisation in Swedish municipalities during the period 2002–2012. The results show that the national pattern of labour market polarisation is driven by polarisation in clusters of previously manufacturing-dominated municipalities with low- and medium-skill production, as well as increasing labour market polarisation and spatial selection within the fast-growing top-tier metropolitan regions. Outside these polarising spaces, most municipalities still experience job upgrading. The much-discussed abandonment of the traditional Western European job-upgrading model towards a polarising trajectory is thus not unequivocal. Regional labour market change and metropolitan selection cause great variation in labour market trajectories across space.

The labour market of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave amid Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has swept across the globe, is a serious challenge to the Russian labour market. This article examines the consequences of Covid-19 for Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and how its territorially isolated and lockdown-affected small labour market responds to drastic changes in employment, income, and consumption. Another question is how the immigrant-rich labour market will rebalance the supply-demand equation. Official statistics from the regional government and its subordinate bodies shows that the Kaliningrad regional labour market has been severely battered by shutdown measures. This particularly applies to organisations operating in the most sensitive industries: manufacturing, hospitality, tourism, estate, transport, and warehousing. The unemployment has gone up, reaching a level above the national average; the number of vacancies is dwindling. Keeping the proportion of out-of-the-region workforce at the usual level may aggravate the situation. Although effective, the measures taken by the regional authorities seem insufficient for an isolated regional labour market.