Unemployment and labour market policy in Central and Eastern Europe.

Summary The transition to a market economy and accession to the European Union have profoundly changed the structure and functioning of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe. This thesis proposes an analysis of the evolutions observed in the regional and national labor markets of the new EU member states as well as an evaluation of the public policies implemented in this context of economic transition. The analysis of the matching process between workers and employers reveals the importance of labor demand in the creation of new hires in Latvia, Slovenia and Estonia and underlines the need to integrate flows (unemployed and vacant jobs) and spatial effects in the modeling. The effectiveness of public policies is documented at the macro and micro levels and demonstrates the positive influence of training programs on unemployment exit rates and the employability of participants.