Employment and skills are at the core of Europe 2020, the European Union's (EU) competitiveness strategy, and are decisive for high productivity and sustained growth. Romania has overcome significant challenges on its path to EU membership and in the early years thereafter. However, the Romanian...

This technical note highlights some of the work the World Bank has recently conducted in support of the growth agenda outlined in the Europe 2020 strategy. The World Bank is actively supporting the new member states, as well as accession and neighborhood countries, in achieving the Europe 2020...

The Bulgarian labor market has seen remarkable improvements in recent years and has contributed to strong economic growth. The benign environment for job creation is now changing, as the global economic crisis impacts on labor market demand in Bulgaria. Compared to the EU27 averages, activity...

This report presents the final results and conclusions of a multi-year program developed by a team comprising Bank staff and first-rate Peruvian researchers, which provides policy-relevant analysis of the constraints to labor market entry for low income workers. Expanding employment...

"Professional skills are scarce in Mozambique, even by the standards of low-income countries. The solution, however, is not necessarily to create more Mozambican training institutions but to address market-specific problems. Where skills are already the binding constraint (for example, in...