International and Regional Labour Markets

Spatial disparities are important for labour markets and their development on various levels: regional, national, and international. These dimensions are the central levels at which labour market policy is shaped and implemented decentrally by the Federal Employment Agency.

In addition to the mobility of goods and capital, migration is increasingly influencing labour markets in Germany and Europe. This equally applies to mobility within the European Single Market and to migration from third countries. This entails significant opportunities for labour markets but also new challenges, for example, in relation to the integration of refugees into the labour market and their participation in society. Important aspects in this context are, among others, the recognition of vocational qualifications (and skills) gained abroad as well as the career choice and participation in the vocational training market of refugees or migrants. The IAB answers the resulting research questions on the basis of its own surveys such as the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees and process data, as well as through case studies.

At the same time, in the course of the current structural change due to digitalisation, automation, and decarbonisation, the gap between employment opportunities and wages is growing not only among different groups in the labour market but also in the regions. The labour market integration of men and women, for example, differs greatly according to the region of origin, family background, professional qualification, or education.

These developments also have a considerable impact on regional disparities in Germany and on measures to mitigate them, for example, with regard to differences between urban and rural regions, demographic change or the regional distribution of companies, sectors, and occupations.

At the IAB, regional disparities are, amongst others, investigated and compared using georeferenced data, and forecasts of the development of regional labour markets are developed. The IAB's small-scale analyses, for example on individual occupations and training market events as well as on regional mobility, contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes at work in Germany's regional labour markets and at the same time enable insights which are important for explaining macroeconomic and social interrelationships.