Annual congress of the European Network on Regional Labour Market Monitoring

The USI Institute for Economic Research (IRE), in collaboration with the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), will be hosting the nineteenth annual congress of the European Network on Regional Labour Market Monitoring (EN RLMM) from 4 to 6 September. The event will be coordinated by the Institute for Economics, Labour and Culture (IWAK) at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and in collaboration with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities of the OECD Leed Programme.

The EN RLMM is a European network whose mission is to promote both the practice and impact of labour market monitoring across Europe at regional and local levels. It was founded in March 2006 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The network is dedicated to developing, disseminating, and applying innovative concepts, methods, and tools tailored to labour market analysis. It fosters a supportive and collaborative environment, bringing together a diverse group of experts, including researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and labour market observers from more than 32 European countries and beyond. The network is committed to promoting knowledge exchange, mutual learning and cooperation between members. Through initiatives such as the annual meeting, European Day, annual anthology, collaborative projects, regular newsletters and Big Data Knowledge Hub, it provides members with a solid platform to share insights, research results and practices.

This year's conference will be held at USI East Campus in Lugano and is titled "Shortages of Labour and Skills: Insights and Evidence to Inform Strategies Relevant to Regional and Local Labour Markets and Labour Market Observatories". About 80 participants are expected and speeches by OECD researchers and representatives of the European Commission are planned. The main event will be a keynote lecture by Professor Conny Wunsch, an authoritative figure in the field of labour economics. Professor Wunsch, from the University of Basel, has extensive experience in labour market policy analysis, employment dynamics, and public policy evaluation methods. Her talk will bring innovative and multidisciplinary perspectives to the debate, providing an opportunity to engage with one of the most important scholars in this field.

The international speakers will address various topics of interest, such as demographic change, the contribution of global macro-trends (including the green and digital transition) and the need for new job skills. At the same time, the WAPES regional conference on "Skills shortages", organised by SECO and UWV (Netherlands), will also take place. WAPES is the worldwide platform for exchanging information and knowledge between Public Employment Services (SECO is a platform partner). Around 60 participants are expected for this second event. These two events will bring 140 people from Europe to Lugano, creating important networking opportunities.

To fully understand the scope of the congress, we spoke with dr. Moreno Baruffini, PhD researcher and head of the Observatory for Economic Dynamics (O-De) at the Institute for Economic Research (IRE) of USI and member of the organising committee for the event to be held in early September. "The European Network on Regional Labour Market Monitoring (EN RLMM) was established almost twenty years ago at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. The idea was conceived by Prof. Alfons Schmid, the then Director of the Institute for Economics, Labour and Culture (IWAK), Dr. Christa Larsen (current director), and Prof. Marco Ricceri of Eurispes in Rome. Their vision was to create an applied research network of regional labour market observatories. I became a part of the network over ten years ago while I was still a PhD student collaborating with the Labour Market Observatory of the Institute for Economic Research at USI. As years went by, the connection strengthened, and I eventually became the head of the IRE's Observatory for Economic Dynamics. Recently, I was invited to join the network's Scientific Committee, where I will contribute to directing activities and research." For almost two decades now, Baruffini explains, the network has represented a valuable opportunity for all those active in the sector: "The network operates through collaboration and support among its members. From European presentation days and the publication of an annual anthology, many network members have been involved in significant European projects. For instance, I have been recruited as a Swiss expert for a EUROSTAT project to establish a European database on job vacancies and necessary qualifications." In this sense, the conference scheduled at USI between 4 and 6 September will be no exception. And it promises to be very interesting: "We will discuss the very topical issue of the paradox of the lack of labour in certain sectors or regions, compared with the difficulty for certain workers to enter the market. For years, several members of the Federal Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) have joined our network, leading to a successful collaboration that has made it possible for us to co-organize this important conference. I am therefore pleased to anticipate that we will be presenting a jointly developed research study during the event. For years, USI and IRE have provided services and conducted research for the Finance and Economics Department of Canton Ticino. The latter will be represented on this occasion by the Director of the Economics Division, the Head of the Labour Market Surveillance Office, and some members of the Labour Section. This opportunity will be valuable for exchanging ideas and enriching each other", Baruffini concludes.

The event, which is of international importance, has been held in several locations in recent years, including Potsdam (Germany) in 2023, at the Eurispes headquarters in Sardinia (Italy) in 2022 and in Timisoara (Romania) in 2021.