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Youth disengagement is widespread in the less developed regions of advanced capitalism, and precarity is constantly (re)produced in the youth labour markets there. In this context, 'diverse economies' such as the social economy (SE) and the digital platform-induced sharing economy (DPSE) have emerged as policy solutions to pressing social, economic and environmental challenges, particularly in the south of the EU. However, most relevant studies examine labour in these new economies without considering the socio-spatial and political factors at play. This article proposes a spatially sensitive conceptualization of the relationship between youth disengagement and employment in the SE and DPSE. Drawing on key concepts from critical geography and geographical political economy, as well as recent research on the spatiality of youth, the article suggests that contemporary 'precarious youthspaces of work' are created by—and embedded in—'dismantled techno-spatial fixes' and discusses the reciprocal relationship between such youthspaces and diverse economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the economic crisis of 2008/2009, the European Union developed the Youth Guarantee (YG) Action Plan to tackle youth labour market disengagement by 'fostering employability' and 'removing barriers' to employment. The current study adopts a Geographical Political Economy approach to analysing the YG's underpinnings and the conditions that differentiate its application on a regional level to explore whether – and, if so, how – the YG helps young people in the Southern EU to enter the labour market. The article introduces the first comparative, cross-regional investigation of the YG programme, targeting the NUTS-II regions of Spain and Italy. It uses mixed methods, supplementing quantitative analysis with in-depth interviews with key informants. We show that in Spanish and Italian regions the YG is closely entwined with socio-spatial inequality and labour precarity, which is reflected in the growing rates of temporary employment and inactive youth. Crucially, we conclude, such outcomes are not simply the result of the institutional/operational misapplications of the YG, as is often assumed. Rather, these misapplications are systematically reinforced by the mechanics of labour flexibilisation within a recessionary and crisis-prone environment, one whose geographical unevenness means that the YG is playing out in quite different ways in different places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the EU has entered a phase of transition to a low-carbon economy, which has led to a decline in the competitiveness of coal. Despite efforts to restructure their energy sectors, coal regions continue to struggle with the lingering effects of the 2008/09 Global Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, which affect their economies and decarbonisation trajectories. In this context, the paper examines the role of youth in the local labour regimes (LLRs) of Eurozone coal regions. Drawing on perspectives of Geographical Political Economy and Political Ecology, the transition from coal to renewable energy is conceptualised as a new socio-ecological fix, reflecting capitalist mechanisms seeking novel avenues for profiting while maintaining established power asymmetries and inequalities. The study employs a mixed methods approach to examine the exacerbated structural challenges faced by youth. Firstly, by analysing secondary macroeconomic, (youth) employment and demographic data, key differences between the LLRs of the coal regions of six Eurozone countries are highlighted. Secondly, a qualitative analysis of Western Macedonia in Greece, one of the most lagging coal regions, is carried out. The analysis is based on primary data collected in focus groups and interviews with key informants, energy workers and locals in the period 2021-2022. Findings suggest that uneven development, labour flexibilisation, and lack of economic diversification hinder the entry of young people into the labour market and contribute to their out-migration from coal regions, thus the latters' role in shaping the changing energy landscape remains marginal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between young individuals that are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs) and regional resilience across the Mediterranean European Union South. It attempts a significant contribution to the literature since academic readings on youth studies have partly overlooked potential interlinkages with regional resilience, while regional studies have neglected to assess the resilience of the young cohorts of the labour force. The paper builds on a geographical political economy approach and employs a mixed-research method, calculating regional resistance and recovery indices and drawing upon informed expert interviews. It scrutinises labour market resilience in terms of youth employment and NEETs against the 2007/08 crisis and documents which regions have been (less) resistant to youth unemployment and inactivity. Thereupon, it locates four factors of low resilience in regional youth labour markets, namely structural deficiencies, path-dependence, labour market segmentation and informal practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successive crises of the 21st century (2008/2009 global recession, COVID-19) have significantly affected the organisation of work and increased the flexibilisation and precarisation of labour, reflecting the changing needs of capital accumulation. Although employment reorganisation is unevenly distributed across space, the link between labour precarisation and cities or regions has not been studied in depth, with most research efforts focusing on the national scale. This article enriches the emerging literature for composite indices of labour market change by constructing an index of labour precarity at the regional scale. It estimates the very Flexible Contractual Arrangements Composite Index in the NUTS2 regions of the European Union from 2008 to 2020 to provide a comparative analysis of the impact of the global recession of 2008/2009 and the initial implications of COVID-19. The findings highlight a persistent division between peripheral and core regions. High precarity is a persistent feature of less developed regions, although it is also increasing significantly in urbanised, economically advanced regions. As found, the degree of labour precarity of a regional labour market is the complex result of national factors as well as regional characteristics such as specialisation, remoteness, path dependency, and local institutional practises and population dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a Geographical Political Economy perspective to critically investigate how successive economic crises occurring from 2009 onwards (including the COVID-19 pandemic) affected youth labour markets in Greece, Italy, and Spain. To do so, it first calculates a Resilience Index for three youth employment types (total, part-time, and temporary employment). It then employs Shift-Share Analysis to quantify the effect of national trends, sectoral dynamism, and local characteristics upon total youth employment changes. After identifying those regions that have exhibited resilience or lack thereof and the underlying reasons for their trajectories, the paper outlines a typology of regional youth labour markets' resilience and examines their dynamics. Specifically, the paper examines the effect of path dependencies, structural deficiencies, and labour polarization on resilience outcomes, concluding that each has steered in different ways the regional youth labour markets examined towards either bouncing back shortly after recessive shocks or developing mechanisms of adaptation amidst recession. Closing, the paper discusses the role of work flexibilization in shaping resilience, finding that whilst it may contribute to coping/adaptation capacities under certain conditions it does not guarantee them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth unemployment and precarity have been expanding in the aftermath of the recent global recession. This article offers a theoretically informed empirical examination of the spatio-temporally uneven expansion of young people 'Not in Employment, Education or Training' (NEETs) between 2008 and 2018 in the European Union (EU) South, namely in Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus. This article contributes to the growing literature on youth inactivity and marginalization, by focusing on the spatial, rather than just the temporal dimension of youth which marks most relevant studies. The analysis engages with the concept of 'youthspaces' to critically analyse the economic, social and political spatialities that determine the dynamic relationship between youth and the labour market, and discuss the persistently high NEET rate in the EU South. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we highlight that gender, class, education and economic growth are key socio-spatial factors that determine the geographically uneven expansion of NEETs across the study regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2008.00813.x Byline: STELIOS GIALIS (1), ELEUTHERIA KARNAVOU (2) Keywords: atypical forms of employment; part-time; temporary; self-employment; Labour Inspectorates; Thessaloniki's local labour market; Greece Abstract: Abstract Post-Fordist reconstitutions in economy and society are positively related with the expansion of atypical employment. This article argues that many of the claims that an increase in atypical forms promotes less rigid labour markets rely on narrow readings of official statistics and also underestimate different local labour realities. Drawing upon case studies in Thessaloniki's Labour Inspectorates and industrial enterprises, it highlights the fact that Greek labour markets, which are already flexible enough, have been rearranged to accommodate new use patterns for atypical forms, both traditional and modern. A controversially expanding trend towards part-time and temporary work and non-agricultural self-employment is discussed. This trend is traced to trades, sectors, industries and firms that have developed distinct patterns in the exploitation of atypical employment within the context of locally constituted social and regulatory practices that interact with globalized capital accumulation procedures. The expansion of atypical employment is examined along two interpretative lines, the one focusing on the effect of recent reforms on small industrial enterprises, the other analysing post-Fordist, flexible socio-spatial restructurings. Resume Les reconstitutions post-fordistes en matiere d'economie et de societe sont bien liees a l'essor d'un emploi atypique. De nombreuses affirmations selon lesquelles une multiplication de formes atypiques favorise des marches du travail moins rigides reposent sur des lectures etriquees des statistiques officielles, tout en sous-estimant les diverses realites locales du travail. A partir d'etudes de cas issues des Inspections du travail et d'entreprises industrielles de Thessalonique, il est mis en evidence que les marches du travail grecs, deja suffisamment flexibles, ont ete remodules en fonction de nouveaux schemas d'utilisation adaptes a des formes atypiques, tant traditionnelles que modernes. Est analysee ici une tendance discutable a l'accroissement du travail temporaire, du temps partiel et de l'emploi independant non-agricole. Cette tendance est reperee dans les metiers, secteurs, industries et entreprises qui ont elabore des schemas distincts d'exploitation d'un emploi atypique dans le cadre de pratiques reglementaires et sociales etablies localement qui interagissent avec les procedures mondialisees d'accumulation du capital. L'essor d'un emploi atypique est etudie selon deux axes interpretatifs, l'un s'attachant a l'incidence des reformes recentes sur les petites entreprises industrielles, l'autre analysant les restructurations socio-spatiales flexibles post-fordistes. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece (2)Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Building of the Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Article note: Stelios Gialis (stgialis@uth.gr), Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, GR-38334 Volos, Greece, and Eleutheria Karnavou (karnavou@topo.auth.gr), Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Building of the Department of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University Campus, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.

The 2008/2009 global economic recession and the Covid-19 pandemic fuelled a heap of social and economic problems, including growing youth unemployment and inactivity. Amidst this pressing conjuncture, female youngsters living in economically deprived regions have been affected the most. The paper in hand studies the changing analogies between young women that are "Not in Employment, Education or Training" (the so-called NEETs) and young men of the same status, between 2008 and 2020, across the regions of four EU South countries. By employing a mixed-methods approach, namely analysing quantitative indices and semi-structured interviews, we put the gender divisions and the geographically uneven distribution of NEETs under thorough scrutiny. Furthermore, by adopting a spatially-sensitive perspective, the paper elucidates key underlying factors behind NEETs' persistence in some of the EU's least-prosperous regions. Along with several structural and institutional factors, peripherality, regional specialization and gender divisions are indicated as crucial, though commonly neglected, dimensions of contemporary youth disengagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is a global pandemic but has a particular geography to it, differentially affecting people and places. Here we explore its impact upon labour markets in the Mediterranean European Union (EU) countries. Our analysis is part of a collective work-in-progress monitoring the pandemic's effects upon workers since early March 2020. First we note that there is a geographical political economy to pandemics. We then scrutinise the current pandemic's spatiality and impact upon Mediterranean EU workers. Following this, we discuss how workers are responding to the pandemic and how this is remaking the geography of employment. As such, our paper represents a contribution to the ongoing development of the Labour Geography literature. Overall, we stress that workers face a variety of choices in responding to the pandemic, choices which are, of course, shaped by the geographical contexts within which workers find themselves. In deciding whether and how to act, they are playing proactive roles in shaping COVID-19's impact upon the geography of employment and emerging labour landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the 2008/2009 economic crisis in Greece and its impact upon employment precarity. Specifically, we focus upon changing regional patterns of waged part-timerism during three periods: the 2005–2008 pre-crisis period; the 2009–12 deep recession; and the 2013–2016 period of mild stabilization. Our analysis reveals important geographical and sectoral variations in the growth of this type of underemployment. In particular, we find that metropolitan regions have experienced the heaviest losses in full-time waged employment and a significant expansion of underemployment. Moreover, they have struggled to bounce back effectively during the period of stabilization. By way of contrast, island regions orientated towards tourism weathered the crisis to a much better degree, with many avoiding the acute flexibilization felt in more urbanized regions. Our study observes a "downwards convergence" of regional employment figures that is caused by Attica's disproportionate crisis. This contrasts popular accounts that focus upon productive output. Moreover, by documenting distinct sectoral trajectories, such as the substantial flexibilization of tourism-related activities, we shed light upon the specifics of an industry often praised for its adaptiveness. Ultimately, through exploring the changing spatialities and sectoral specificities of growing flexibility during a period of recession and recovery, our study provides a geographically sensitive perspective on the emerging dynamics of the Greek reserve army of labour. In so doing, we further historical geographical materialist understandings of the capitalist crisis in Southern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the debate on regional resilience to crisis in Greece, a country long suffering from insufficient planning mechanisms and recently hit by a severe economic crisis. In the paper, we discuss the spatialities of employment flexibilization vis-à-vis the devaluation of regional productive structures between 2005 and 2016. The paper critically builds on previous accounts of regional resilience, but also seeks to develop the concept through engaging in: (i) how different employment patterns, namely part-time work, present a powerful adaptive mechanism that is related to path-dependent regional production profiles; and (ii) why regions with less favourable pre-crisis production structures and anaemic growth seem to have been less affected by recession and may witness a faster recovery in its aftermath. The paper adopts a multi-layered methodology, using a variety of measures, offering an empirically grounded theorization of contemporary labour market changes within the Southern EU. The results indicate some key reasons for radically reformulating established regulatory and planning practices in order to promote a pattern of resilience that is more friendly to good and well-paid jobs. A prerequisite for the latter is the promotion of territorially cohesive strategies that reduce regional disparities and harness 'unregulated flexibilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers a fresh, empirically grounded look at the spatialities of crisis‐triggered employment forms—a largely overlooked issue in contemporary critical geography literature. Specifically, it discusses the interconnection between investment flows from manufacturing to the built environment (capital switching) and underemployment in urban metropolitan regions to substantiate its impact on emerging spatial fixities. The article, which is based on an empirical analysis informed by a radical political economy, investigates changing fixed capital formations in Greece over an extended period prior to and during the recession, from 1995 to 2012. It traces the evolution of part‐time waged work in the capital metropolitan region of Attica (Athens) vis‐à‐vis the rest of the country's regional labour markets, focusing on the polarized 2005–2012 period and the demise of the construction industry. The article highlights that 'disrupted' capital switching that occurred in Greece, closely associated with recalibrated sectoral priorities and institutional interventions, resulted in the uneven sprawling of underemployment. Our findings offer insight into how the dismantling of spatial fixes within core metropolitan regions of the southern European Union (and beyond) are connected to labour surplus and successive slumps in manufacturing and construction. The article closes by calling for new theorizations of contemporary urban regional unevenness and its spatiotemporal fixities, which account for the role of changes in labour turnover time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the regional dimensions of under-employment by analysing the uneven dispersion of part-time jobs in Greece. It understands under-employment as an integral dimension of contemporary flexible labour trends, triggered by devaluation and expanding amid crisis, although in diverse geographical and sectoral terms. It follows a methodology that comparatively analyses statistical data, relevant secondary sources and previous case studies, before moving to a theoretical contextualization of the findings. Based on this framework, NUTS-II level total employment and part-time work data are analysed through location quotients, and a new embellishment of shift-share analysis is implemented for 2005–2008 and 2009–2012 across nine sectors. The findings reveal four distinct, although porous, patterns of under-employment that are distinguished according to different regional productive specializations and the impact of structural or regional effects. The reasons why some regional economies, such as the tourist ones, were more resistant to employment losses, and at the same time the most keen on expanding part-time work, are scrutinized. Concluding, three deeper causal mechanisms, namely productive-technological, organizational and institutional, that determine the under-employment patterns revealed, are discussed and contrasted to relevant literature findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the shifting patterns of atypical employment across the regions of Greece, severely hit by the 2009 crisis. Changes are depicted by NUTS-II level data for the pre- and post-crisis periods of 2005–2009 and 2009–2011. A regional categorization is suggested, as different forms of atypical employment, namely part-time, temporary, solo self-employment and family work, have expanded unevenly across space. The authors argue that different patterns are related to regional specialization and industrial structures differently affected by the crisis. Established forms of atypical employment have been shaken, while new highly precarious ones have been boosted. Moreover, regulatory reforms for higher labour flexibilization have also defined the emergent atypical employment patterns in Greece. The article points out that in the Greek labour market, already marked by high flexibility and poor job security and social benefits, recent regulatory reforms increasing flexibilization have deteriorated labour and devalued atypical employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, Mediterranean countries were called on by European Union officials to provide for a “less-rigid” regulatory framework, in order to enhance “flexicurity”. This paper critically examines post-2008 flexibilization trends by focusing on Spanish, Italian and Greek regions. Starting from a contextualization of atypical employment and security, it then moves in a twofold direction; firstly, it presents the Flexible Contractual Arrangements and Active Labour Market Policies composite indicators, calculated for the NUTS-II regions of 12 member states for 2008 and 2011. These indicators reveal the changing ranking, especially of the Greek regions, towards higher labour market flexibility and relatively low levels of employability security; secondly, it focuses on the changing forms of atypical labour in the six regions that host the capital and the most important port city of Greece, Italy and Spain, respectively, by offering data on the expansion of flexible arrangements therein. The uneven flexibilization trends found in the study regions are seen as an outcome of the interaction between the general devaluation trends, different backgrounds and regionally specific patterns of labour market adjustment, while employment is found to be neither “rigid” nor “flexicure”. The paper concludes with some remarks on the relation between post-2008 dismantling of local labour regimes, restructuring and flexicurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the virtual water (VW) and concept of water footprint (WF) which are used in the field of natural resource management to address water scarcity. Topics discussed include water pollution and environmental degradation in terms of WF, significance of VW for nations related to agricultural trade, and implementation of water management techniques by calculating water resources and distributing them in different production processes.

ABSTRACT Drawing upon an extended case study in six industrial sectors in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece this paper highlights that the transformation of the local production system is based on the locally specific interaction of two interrelated restructuring trajectories: a 'weak' strategy that is mainly associated to small/medium-sized labour intensive enterprises and a 'strong' strategy which is fairly connected to large, increasingly internationalised firms. Both these strategies are found to be in need of cheap labour while they make use of the locally diversified atypical employment pools, though in different ways. In parallel, they presuppose a subordinated integration into subcontracting production systems that expands towards the regional, the Balkan and the international arena. The paper underlines that restructuring strategies in Thessaloniki, especially the prevailing 'weak' one, do not seem to alter the conditions of backwardness for the local productive system. Apart from leaving local structures poor in innovative production, automated machinery and non-hierarchical networking practices they are largely based on diffused, poorly-paid atypical employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Fordist reconstitutions in economy and society are positively related with the expansion of atypical employment. This article argues that many of the claims that an increase in atypical forms promotes less rigid labour markets rely on narrow readings of official statistics and also underestimate different local labour realities. Drawing upon case studies in Thessaloniki’s Labour Inspectorates and industrial enterprises, it highlights the fact that Greek labour markets, which are already flexible enough, have been rearranged to accommodate new use patterns for atypical forms, both traditional and modern. A controversially expanding trend toward part-time and temporary work and nonagricultural self-employment is discussed. This trend is traced to trades, sectors, industries and firms that have developed distinct patterns in the exploitation of atypical employment within the context of locally constituted social and regulatory practices that interact with globalized capital accumulation procedures. The expansion of atypical employment is examined along two interpretative lines, the one focusing on the effect of recent reforms on small industrial enterprises, the other analysing post-Fordist, flexible sociospatial restructurings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of digital platforms is spawning new, if often precarious, forms of work. One such type of work that has particularly grown in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, is that of digital platform-facilitated on-demand food delivery services. Such deliveries are often undertaken by younger workers. Given this, here we explore the following research questions: (i) what forms of labour precarity are found and reproduced in the physical and digital spaces that young food delivery platform (FDP) workers create and inhabit?; and (ii) what types of agency do FDP workers develop within these spaces in order to navigate – and sometimes resist – precarity? Drawing upon concepts from critical Youth Studies, Geographical Political Economy and Labour Geography, the article develops the concept of precarious youthspaces of work to investigate the connections between youths’ everyday lives and the production of space. To do so we present a qualitative study conducted in Athens, Greece, that sought to capture the multifaceted working arrangements of FDP workers, both offline and online. Our analysis reveals that FDP workers suffer various forms of labour precarity which they must navigate. But such workers are not just accommodating to precarity. They have also generated forms of collective oppositional agency that are reshaping local labour markets. However, whilst their agency has sometimes generated solidarity and robust collective movements it has also led to divisions that have limited cooperation amongst FDP workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]