Harm-Jan Rouwendal (p), Sierdjan Koster (p)

Orsa Kekezi

This paper explores the relationship between demand for skills and agglomeration economies. We question to what extent a job in large cities are more complex compared to the same job in smaller cities. Most datasets consisting of task and skill descriptions of jobs lack spatial variation in required skills. Using job descriptions from online vacancies, we empirically analyse the spatial variation in skill requirements. The results show that a job in a large city requires more skills than the same job in a small city. Jobs in cities not only require more but also different skills, which indicates a higher level of complexity. In line with a higher specialisation level trough a more extensive the division of tasks, workers are expected to master more skills than workers in the same job in small cities.
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Mihail Eva(p)

Harm-Jan Rouwendal

This research inquires the geographical dimension of labour market polarization. The first main objective aims at delivering a systematic assessment of labour market polarization in Romania during 2007-2018, by answering the following two questions: (i) can we speak of labour market polarization in Romania during the period 2007-2018? And (ii) How can we describe the geography of labour market polarization? To answer the first question, labour market polarization is assessed by classifying all economic sectors (2 digit NACE rev2) intro five groups (five quintiles) based on the average of wages of all employees from the sector. Taking this classification we further compute the evolution of the number of jobs for each of the quantile and thus test the polarization hypothesis at the national level. To answer the second question, the same procedure is repeated for each commune/city of Romania. After classifying each commune/city into one of the well-known categories found in the literature (polarizing, upgrading, downgrading, mid-upgrading - as defined by Henning & Eriksson, 2021), we finally obtain not only the frequency of polarizing cases, but also their geography. The second main objective aims at exploring the determinants of the geography of structural changes in the labour market, including determinants such as spatial accessibility to the EU market (computed using a highly detailed GIS road network), demographic size and demographic structure in 2011, spatial proximity to various categories of urban centres, and education level in 2011.

Martin Henning, Orsa Kekezi (p)

Mihail Eva

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