Active Labour Market Policies in Transnational Regions

In many welfare states of the Global North, active labour market policies (ALMPs) have been decentralized the last decades. ALMPs come in various shapes, from human skills investments to workfare, with different aims such as decreasing skill shortages, reducing benefit recipience, and supporting long-term unemployed. One reason to decentralise services has been to better address local needs. This raises questions how local governments neighbouring other states organise their services. To what extent does local policy makers consider the needs of local labour markets? Do caseworkers encourage unemployed people to look for employment in the neighbouring country? To what extent do local governments collaborate with their counterparts in the neighbouring country?

This paper addresses the mentioned questions by investigating three borderline regions in Sweden: Northeast (bordering Finland), Midwest (bordering Norway), and South (bordering Denmark). These three regions have different demography, employment rates, and labour markets which opens for fertile comparisons. The paper is based on interviews with managers and caseworkers working with ALMPs in these areas. Taken together, the paper aims to increase the knowledge on how local governments in transnational regions conceive of, and plan, ALMPs.

The paper adds to research concerned with the intersection between labour market policies and political scale by discussing the role of national boundaries in enabling but also limiting unemployed people and labour markets.