Labour Market Infrastructure and Regional Economic Growth: Evidence from the EU/EEA and Ukraine
The effectiveness of labour market infrastructure, reflected in the structural characteristics of the labour market, such as employment and unemployment rates, is associated with economic growth, making the studied issue relevant. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of the characteristics of the labour market structure on the economic growth of countries in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA), and regions of Ukraine.
The study employed correlation, regression, and comparative analysis. The analysis conducted at the interstate level gave grounds to conclude about the unification of the trend towards reducing working hours in favour of improving quality, which leads to economic growth. At the same time, in the context of disparate state policies, it can be stated that other traditional characteristics of the labour market structure do not significantly affect economic growth. This can be explained by the effect of structural saturation, which, despite the institutional differences of individual countries, is characteristic of the EU/EEA states. In Ukraine, under a unified labour policy, the impact of most characteristics of the labour market structure also remains insignificant. The only statistically significant variable was the share of self-employed persons, which characterises self-employment as an adaptation mechanism in a transition economy. The higher explanatory power of the model for Ukraine also reveals the advantages of implementing an integrated policy to improve labour market efficiency. The prospect of further research is an in-depth study of the relationship between labour market infrastructure and economic growth in transition economies, including cross-regional analysis.
Copyright© 2026 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Article’s History: Received 5th of July, 2026; Revised 21st of August, 2026; Accepted 7th of September, 2026; Available online: 30th of September, 2026. Published as research article in the Volume XXI, Issue 4(94), 2026.
Zub, M., Shahnazaryan, G., Aliyeva, V., Kyslyi, O., & Khomyak, M. (2026). Labour Market Infrastructure and Regional Economic Growth: Evidence from the EU/EEA and Ukraine. Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Volume XXI, Fall, 4(94), 1319 – 1335. https://doi.org/10.57017/jaes.v21.4(94).11
CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement: Zub, M.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Shahnazaryan, G.: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Aliyeva, V.: Data curation, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Kyslyi, O.: Data curation, Software, Formal analysis, Validation, Writing – review & editing. Khomyak, M.: Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Acknowledgments/Funding: The authors received no external funding for this research. No additional acknowledgments are applicable.
Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Data Availability Statement: The data used in this study are derived from publicly available secondary sources, including the World Bank World Development Indicators, The Global Economy database, and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, as identified in Tables 1 and 2 and in the References. No new primary data were generated.
Ethical Approval Statement: This study relies exclusively on publicly available secondary and aggregate data and does not involve human participants, personal data, animal subjects, or experimental interventions. Therefore, ethical approval was not required.
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