New perspectives on employability and labour market policy: reflecting on key issues

Introduction This editorial introduces a theme issue on `̀ New Perspectives on Employability and Labour Market Policy''. The papers that follow were developed by participants in a cross-national research network established with the support of the Regional Studies Association, which aimed to share knowledge on both the individual and spatial dimensions of employability and labour market exclusion, and related policy responses. The papers were selected to take in research on barriers to work and job-search strategies among different groups, the role of employers in providing opportunities for job seekers, how the geography of labour markets shapes the experience of unemployment, and local and regional governance arrangements that provide the context for policy responses. As European economies face a potentially prolonged period of high unemployment, these contributions could not be timelier. This introduction considers current debates around how èmployability' is understood and conceptualised, and what this means for the discussion and evaluation of labour market policy. We then briefly preview the seven papers of this theme issue, before finally identifying some common analytical trends across these `new perspectives'.