EN

Governmental Actors

Recommendations to the National / Regional Government Sector
  • Introduce an ‘occupational barometer’. This tool can be used to provide services for job-seekers, career guidance and labour mobility. It helps to identify promising occupations and labour shortages, to plan vocational training and retraining and to promote immigration.
Example from Russia:
Murmansk region, Yamal, Yakutia (regional unemployment administrations): ‘Barometr zanyatosti’ are part of the web-based services of the unemployment administration. They make it possible to find out which professions are in demand on the labour market and where qualified staff outnumber vacancies.
  • Support project activities aimed at targeted groups, for example, marginalized youth and children, as well as projects aimed at supporting and developing youth talents.
Example from Finland:
Almost countrywide (Regional State Administrative Agencies): Outreach youth work offers support for young people under the age of 29 who are at risk of exclusion from education and working life.
Examples from Russia:
Regional and countrywide (Federal Agency of Youth Affairs of the Russian Federation (rosmolodezh)): A wide variety of programmes, targeted fellowships, youth forums, etc., specifically for talented youth. Young people across the Arctic case towns successfully took advantage of these opportunities.
Develop creative industries allowing people to combine both business skills and cultural practices. Creative economies have become an attractive new element, especially for young people. Other private initiatives besides businesses should also be supported.
Examples from Russia:
Murmansk region (government): Offers funding to support small businesses in the form of start-up grants.
Example from Finland:
From the age of 13 onwards young people can establish a 4H enterprise of their own with support from the local 4H club.
Develop effective mechanisms to support young and talented professional people, with these targeting the kinds of skills the municipalities have a need for. This can be done through soft loans, subsidies and ‘social packages’ and by highlighting career prospects. This is a way to attract returning migrants and prevent brain drain in northern municipalities.
Example from Russia
Countrywide (Russian Federal Government): Existing programmes such as ‘rural teacher’ and ‘rural doctor’, offering financial incentives and free or subsidized housing to encourage young specialists to move to the North.
  • Offer northern benefits: the same benefits can encourage people to stay in the North and to move North. For example, car taxes or fuel prices could be lower in the North.
Examples from Russia
Countrywide (Russian Federal and regional governments): Offering benefits to people living in the North is a common practice: lower tax rates, income top-ups (severnye nadbavki), free travel once a year to the South for employees, special housing loans, earlier retirement with full pension entitlement, etc. Getting a pension does not necessarily mean no longer working but getting a guaranteed monthly sum of money after having worked for a number of years. The sum is higher in the North than elsewhere.