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Purpose: This chapter addresses the skills shortages in Kosovo’s labour market, emphasising the service sector. The labour market economy is very dynamic, and Kosovo, with the youngest population in Europe, also has the highest unemployment level among youths. Therefore, we aim to analyse the mismatches of the skills demand in the labour market.

Methodology: The scientific methods used in this chapter are quantitative methods applying analytical and critical approaches based on economic theory. In this chapter, we analysed secondary data from Labour Force Surveys (LFS) and official reports such as the World Bank and UNDP. We have also conducted primary research with the employees of SMEs in the service sector, with specifically related questionnaires for descriptive issues.

Findings: The logit model used in this research has shown goodness of fit and yielded significant results. Based on the empirical findings, we have found a need for some main soft skills such as communication skills, language skills, ICT skills, and additional training to help gain employability skills. These findings suggest that there is a need for more skills in the service sector, significantly impacting the employees’ job performance and the job seeker’s level of employability.

Significance: Noticeably, countries that are still in the transition process face inequalities in the labour market and have a very high level of unemployment. The findings can be used in analysing demand-side management of the labour market and mismatching of skills in transition economies by policy makers.

Introduction: Organisations all over the world are experiencing skill gaps. One of the key factors contributing to the shortage of competent workers is the inability to find candidates that fit the profile. Most of the time, the market does not offer what organisations require.

Purpose: This research focuses on skill shortages and labour market rigidity in the information technology (IT) sector. It discusses the impact of labour shortage and strategies to overcome these challenges.

Need of the Study: The study is required to reduce the skill shortage in the IT sector and inflexibility in the labour market.

Methodology: The data are collected from secondary sources, that is, books, journals and other internet sources.

Findings: The labour market volatility is impacted by several external factors leading to rigidity and talent shortages. Different forecasts within the IT industry, manufacturing, media and telecommunications indicate large-scale labour shortages. The growing influence of digitalisation further creates challenges for organisations during the hiring process as the identified skill gaps for IT professionals are also identified.

Practical Implications: Labour market rigidity affects the labour market. Shifts in labour supply and demand do not always impact wages. Methods are suggested on how to reduce the rigidity in the labour market and, in turn, decrease the skill gaps.

The efficient functioning of the labour market is an important factor that affects long-term economic growth. The interaction of supply and demand on the labour market is influenced by institutions which change the motivations and behaviour of economic actors and, ultimately, the flexibility of the labour market. There is no consensus in the literature on the effect these institutions have on labour market outcomes. This chapter focuses on a set of selective labour market institutions (employment protection legislation, minimum wages, unemployment benefits, labour taxation, trade unions and active labour market policies), compares their relevance to other European Union (EU) countries and through the lens of the Beveridge curve it tries to evaluate their impact on effectiveness of the Czech labour market. The international comparison shows that most of the considered institutions/regulations do not reach such importance (except employment protection legislation) and that they have a significant negative effect on labour market outcomes. Even the model of the Beveridge curve does not indicate that the Czech labour market is characterised by rigidities that would impair the effectiveness of a matching process at the aggregate level.

This paper aims to develop a vision for the future identifying how digital nomadism affects the labor markets in the tourism industry.

The qualitative research method was used. The research data were collected using a semistructured interview form developed by the researcher. The sample consists of twenty people working in the tourism industry as tour guides, travel agency owners, accommodation sector employees and professional managers. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data.

It was found that employees in the tourism industry are familiar with digital nomadism, interact with employees working as digital nomads and may prefer the digital nomad way of working, while employees in the accommodation sector cannot work as digital nomads due to the nature of their work. It is shown that digital nomadism can be applied to tour guides and travel agency owners.

The data was collected from employees of the accommodation sector, travel agencies, tour guides and employees of the Turkish tourism labor market. It is recommended that the tourism labor markets adapt to the digitalized world and adjust their working models in this context.

This is one of the first studies on the impact of digital nomadism on the tourism labor markets.

We study the potential effects of pension underfunding on corporate investment, financial constraints and improved employee bonding using 10 Pacific-Basin countries (including the United States, Australia, and eight Asian countries) at heterogeneous economic development stages and different regulatory environments. We document that corporate pensions are significantly underfunded in most countries of our sample in the period of 2001–2017, when interest rates were ultralow in most countries. In addition, firms from countries with stronger employee protection and more generous retirement benefits tend to show higher levels of underfunding in their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. To the extent of pension underfunding imposing constraints on corporate investment, we find that firms in these countries can face more constraints on investment when their pension is underfunded.

Economic ties and formation of trade blocks escalates the movement of goods among the participants and bring different economic and structural changes. Therefore, the current research emphasises on the distribution of market structure and industrial value added among the participant countries of China–Pakistan economic corridor project while focussing on pre and post FTA status.

This study utilises the footloose capital model for analysing whether China or Pakistan is more suitable for attracting factors of production to increase their share of industrial value added. For econometric analyses the current research utilises data from 1995 to 2018 and maximum likelihood effect method to assess factors that affect regional value-added distribution.

Results show that both countries owe different level of economic developments. Effect of capital is, comparatively, similar for both countries while Pakistan supports trade openness which points towards the fact of positive utilisation of abundant labour resources in Pakistan by establishing industrial structure either through domestic capital formation or foreign investment. Whereas, share of labour and trade openness of China positively affect value added production of China.

This is one of the unique studies that studies the regional economic treaties usefulness for any developing country across Asia. Where this study uses the footloose capital model and maximum likelihood method for its analysis which is not previously done, while for detailed analyses the study further divides the timeframe into two parts as pre-FTA ranges from 1995 to 2006, post-FTA from 2007 to 2018 while overall results consist of whole-time frame.

The need for the study is justified by the fact that scientists and policy makers around the world are trying to identify the potential threat of digitalisation, looking for ways to adapt to new changes and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society and the knowledge economy and to mitigate risks. Digitalisation also changes the labour market – using information and communication technology (ICT) in the working process opens up new opportunities. Moving from a traditional office to another environment, combining work with private life and recreation more effectively, while remote work deals with costly jobs, spaces and congestion on the city streets. The study aims to assess the development of remote work in the European Union (EU) and Latvia, assessing its effectiveness and the possibilities for long-term use by analysing its impact on the transformational directions of the economy. During the analysis, the following findings were made: identified the potential and problems of the deployment of remote work in Latvia, determined the main challenges of remote work and policies to improve the situation. The analysis employs theoretical and empirical research methods. The theoretical method of analysis and deduction provides information on its impact on the economy from the scientific literature on remote work and its diverse aspects. The comparative method is widely used to identify aspects of remote work distribution and economic development and their interaction. Practical implications of research – to make recommendations on policy directions to improve the situation, which would promote the further development of remote work.

Is there a secret recipe for economic growth?

No, there is no recipe, but we can extrapolate some pieces of advice from Adam Smith.

An economy can leave behind its “dull” stagnant state and grow when its markets expand, when the productivity of its workers increases thanks to high compensations, which are seen as incentives to work harder and when lobbying and cronyism are kept at bay. Luck plays a role too, but these three ingredients are necessary, even if not sufficient, for an economy to grow and thus be “cheerful.”

These three aspects – expansion of market, liberal compensation of workers and lobbying – especially combined, have often been underestimated in Smith’s understanding of the possible sources of economic growth.

This paper analyzes how a national social enterprise policy encourages the social missions of social enterprises and uncovers the relationships between social enterprise governance and labor equity, an area that has been rarely studied in nonprofit governance studies.

The study analyzes the effects of four legal requirements for work-integrated social enterprises (WISEs) codified by the Social Enterprises Promotion Act (SEPA, 2007) in South Korea. Then, it relies on panel regression analysis (2020–2022) to examine how the compositions of the governance of WISEs are related to their hiring and wage equity.

The institutional arrangements required by SEPA have resulted in positive social impacts for most WISEs. However, the results of regression models show that individual participant groups in the WISE governance achieved mixed results depending on the labor issue.

Generally, this research explores the concept of diversity and its utility in nonprofit governance, with a particular focus on targeted diversity policies, demonstrating that governance arrangements influence the success of these policies.

The findings bring new insights for policymakers about “altruistic economic entities.” For practitioners in social enterprises, the results of the regression models underscore the importance of understanding the participant composition of decision-making meetings.

This study sheds light on labor equity, which government-certified social enterprises should achieve from the perspective of nonprofit governance.

Purpose: Students’ transition from education to employment is influenced by factors like the length and calibre of their education, demography, labour market conditions, and the general state of the economy. Regardless of the economy, education systems should seek to ensure that students have the skills required for the labour market. This will help them better transition from school to work. This study examines the work skills that companies require for entry-level positions in Romania.

Need for Study: Previously, text analysis studies treated the job market only for the IT industry in Romania. To understand the demand-side opportunities and restrictions, assessing the employment opportunities for young people in the Romanian labour market is necessary.

Methodology: A text mining approach from 842 unstructured data of the existing job positions in October 2022 for fresh graduates or students is used in this chapter. The study uses data from LinkedIn job descriptions in the Romanian job market. The methodology involved is focused on text retrieval, text-pre-processing, word cloud analysis, network analysis, and topic modelling.

Findings: The empirical findings revealed that the most common words in job descriptions are experience, team, work, skills, development, knowledge, support, data, business, and software. The correlation network revealed that the most correlated pairs of words are gender–sexual–race–religion–origin–diversity–age–identity–orientation–colour–equal–marital.

Practical Implications: This study looked at the job market and used text analytics to extract a space of skill and qualification dimensions from job announcements relevant to the Romanian employment market instead of depending on subjective knowledge.