Conceptualization of the regional labour market: structure, factors and typology

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to deepen the socio-geographical approach to the analysis of regional labour markets under contemporary socio-economic, demographic, migration, and security transformations that significantly affect employment structure, labour mobility, territorial differentiation of labour markets, and functional linkages between territories. The purpose of the article is to generalize theoretical approaches to the study of the regional labour market and to identify its essence, structure, key formation factors, and typological features within a socio-geographical framework.

The regional labour market is considered as a multilevel system of socio-labour relations within which the processes of formation, distribution, utilization, and reproduction of the labour potential of a territory take place. Its structure includes subject, object, institutional, infrastructural, functional, and spatial components, the interaction of which shapes territorial characteristics of employment, labour mobility, and the localization of economic activity. Particular attention is paid to the spatial dimension of labour market functioning, which reflects territorial disparities in employment, the level of integration of local labour markets, transport accessibility, migration mobility of the population, and functional linkages between territories.

The main factors of formation and transformation of the regional labour market are systematized, including demographic, economic, social, migration, institutional, technological, infrastructural, spatial, and security factors. It is emphasized that under current Ukrainian conditions, the security factor has acquired a systemic character and significantly affects the territorial structure of employment, labour mobility patterns, functional boundaries of labour markets, and centres of human capital concentration. Approaches to the typology of regional labour markets are proposed based on the level of socio-economic development, the balance between labour demand and supply, the degree of spatial integration, openness, and resilience to crisis impacts. The generalization of theoretical approaches made it possible to develop an integral structural-functional model of the regional labour market, which reflects the interrelations between its internal elements, external factors, and performance characteristics.