2025 RSA Regional Futures Conference

Session Organisers
Nikos Kapitsinis, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Esteban Fernandez Vazquez, University of Oviedo, Spain
Jeisson Cardenas Rubio, University of Warwick, UK

Macro drivers of change, including technological change, globalisation, and green transition, as well as extraordinary phenomena, such as the 2008 global economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, have restructured contemporary labour. The green transition transforms European labour markets, though its effects vary significantly across regions. This occurs alongside the digital transition that promotes more sustainable production methods, including automation and autonomy. Vulnerable groups—such as migrants, NEETs (young people not in education, employment, or training), and low-skilled workers—are especially at risk, as they are overrepresented in high-risk sectors and face greater challenges when seeking re-employment. Existing views on the process of job creation and destruction (JCD) have provided crucial insights for the transformation of labour markets in the current transitionary period, although focusing on the demand side, particularly related to skills needed. Moreover, the largest part of literatures on JCD and its effects focuses on the national level, particular sectors, predominantly approaching them from a quantitative perspective, thus relatively overlooking working conditions in the jobs created. Thus, there is room for improvement of our knowledge on regional labour markets transformation in the context of green and digital transition. In this session, we invite interventions that offer conceptual, methodological and empirical papers of regional labour markets transformation in the context of green and digital transition. Potential contributions may focus on:

• Conceptualisation of job creation and destruction and its geographically and socially uneven effects
• How transitions materialize as localised processes that occur in multi-actor, multi-scalar and multi-dimensional environments
• What sectors, jobs and skills are under the greatest risk of being affected by the green and digital transition and what this means for regional labour markets and regional development
• What are the socially and geographically uneven effects of job creation and destruction in context of the green and digital transition
• What policies should be recommended to address the geographically and socially uneven implications of regional labour markets transformation in the context of green and digital transition

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