Persistent and high local unemployment is a major problem all over the world. In transition processes regions develop diversely, resulting in increasing unemployment in some regions and decreasing in others. In neoclassical theory this will even out over time, due to wage differentials and mobility. In real life, however, regional differences often remain, due to, among other things, the housing market offset mobility.
The aim of this project is to analyse and compare persistent unemployment on local labour markets in Scandinavia and post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from a defined perspective. Five workshops will take place in Malmö (Sweden), Bratislava (Slovakia), Belgrade (Serbia), Zagreb (Croatia) and Haugesund (Norway). Each workshop will be two days long and contain of four sections.
In the first section the host delegation presents the situation, policy and governmental initiatives of the country. The second part of the workshop will focus on a specific research theme; one theme for each workshop. In the third section, each delegation will present data on the situation in their country and in the fourth section of each workshop an EU-application will be discussed. Output of the project is among other things to establish joint research publications among the members, to build up a database with information on local labour markets, real estate markets and transportation and to develop research joint applications.