The regional shifts in public employment: Russian Arctic

Abstract

The paper examines the issue of enhancing the efficiency of regional public employment systems. A region's sectoral employment pattern serves as an indicator of its socioeconomic development level. Understanding structural shifts occurring in response to inter-industry labor flows is critical to achieve effective employment policies. In this study, we propose a classification of economic sectors that uses as key criterion the impact on public employment of structural shift components (national share, industrial mix, regional shift) and can be used as a tool for evaluating the effectiveness of regions’ sectoral policies and for identifying industries with potential for job creation. The analysis demonstrates the significance of Groups 1–3economic sectors, for which the local share is positive and exceeds the national and industry mix share, in the efforts to increase regional employment. We evaluate the employment potential of the Russian Arctic regions’ economic sectors through identifying their core industries and relative concentration. By using as example the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), we demonstrate the scholarly and practical value of the proposed classification in enhancing the effectiveness and objectivity of local sectoral policies. We further provide the analysis of share the national, sectoral, and regional factors represent in sectoral employment shift, and present the industries that have played a dominant role in the Republic of Sakha's employment growth. Using the proposed classification, we evaluate the efficiency of the employment policy of the region under study and propose recommendations for growth in sectoral employment.