Functional labour markets represent a significant prerequisite for the successful economic development of regions. However, in many regions, there is insufficient data for an optimal steering of these labour markets. Regional labour market observatories are a corrective approach. They offer continuously, differentiated labour market information: data on regional or local employment and professional development, on unemployment as well as vocational and further education. The transparency thus created not only benefits the regional labour market politicians by supporting such steering; it also benefits enterprises, the unemployed and labour offices as a more targeted strategy for actors is made possible through this higher transparency.
Therefore, the Initiative Networking European Labour Market Observatories is oriented towards bringing all regional labour market observatories in Europe together in one network to make possible a complete, quick and systematic access to the newest methods and practices. At the same time, it is important to provide a channel for a lively exchange between the observatories on the empirical application of these methods.
