Review article
Locally specific measures for employment aimed at regional development
Vladimir Cini
Nataša Drvenkar
Ivan Sarić
Abstract
The oldest and largest sub-region in the world functioning on the principle of economic union is the European Union. The creation of a single market has initiated the process of conditional adjustment of markets
in the EU member states, which has a significant impact on the social welfare of its citizens. It is necessary
to tackle this issue by joint efforts within the European Union. As globalization processes push for economic integration and development of competitive advantage, the regions will have to make some challenging
adjustments. The development tends to concentrate in highly competitive regions, while regions in the
periphery lag behind. However, this pertains not only to the economic lag, but also to a potential negative
political situation.
Locally specific active employment policy measures are a continuation of the effort to make these measures
more flexible. They refer to the Joint Assessment of Employment Policy Priorities and the IPA Human
Resources Development Operational Programme - a regional policy instrument of the European Union.
Both documents highlight the issue of disproportional development of regions, which requires special local
measures and active labour market policy programmes. To reduce regional differences in development, it
is necessary to invest more resources in the regions that lag behind. In this particular case, this means the
counties in Croatia with high unemployment rates, a large number of registered unemployed persons and
low employment rate. Consequently, this paper explains the importance of the adoption of locally specific
measures for employment, which unfortunately did not take hold in the Republic of Croatia, and highlights
the need for further decentralization of public services, with the aim of balancing regional development
Keywords
labour market; regional development; regional competitiveness; locally specific employment measures; European Union
Hrčak ID:
116464
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2013.
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