Annual Meeting 2015: Big Data and the Complexity of Labour Market Policies: New Approaches in Regional and Local Labour Market Monitoring for Reducing Skills Mismatches

Milan, Italy, 15/10/2015

The Annual Meeting of the EN RLMM was concerned with innovative approaches to regional and local labour market monitoring through the use of Big Data. As the definition of Big Data and the opportunities for its utilisation are constantly evolving, it is important to acquire a solid understanding of the issues associated with its possible uses. The labour market is one of the central areas for applying Big Data and it could possibly be the main lever for enhancing the resilience of the post-crisis European economy, which is still suffering from the consequences of the most recent economic downturn. Considering that Big Data is a new field of study and practice, we engaged with in-depth exploration of its use — focussing on applying Big Data in the monitoring of regional and local labour markets and discussing also the associated challenges and reflecting on possible solutions for the different European countries. The main questions that inspired the presentations and served as a starting point for the discussions at the Annual Meeting were concerned with the social changes and framework conditions, technical solutions, methods and service models for the use of Big Data as well as the legal and ethical contexts for Big Data use.