EU labor policy recommendations drawn from COVID‐driven research attention on cross‐border commuting – A review

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate which EU cross-border labor policy recommendations can be drawn from COVID-driven research attention. For this purpose, a systematic literature review with an in-depth qualitative analysis of selected articles was performed. Overall, three major categories of recommendations were revealed. Besides recommendations on contagion policy and the centrality of decision-making, recommendations on solving the social impact of the pandemic on the reputation of cross-border commuters can be deduced. The three categories are unified by the need for more regional but cross-border approaches in decisionmaking and research in general. Seeing the EU rather more as a constellation of various economic and social regions, including cross-border communities, than a total of countries divided by national borders, would benefit EU labor policy and cross-border commuters automaticallynot only in times of crises. Exploiting new spatial research methods to analyze (labor) mobility within border regions enables novel contributions to the state of research.

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on regional inequalities in Romania. Spotlight on unemployment and health conditions

“…Exploiting various spatial methods to evaluate regional inequalities and their interaction enables novel contributions to the research. However, the availability of relevant data at the local level is challenging for many countries, and longitudinal analyses would generate significant evidence for policy makers (Trager, 2022), helpful for prioritizing the policy agenda and to evaluate vulnerable groups or regions. New techniques for acquiring relevant datasets could open up relevant research directions and practical conclusions.…”