Looking beyond gross domestic product per capita, convergence in employment for the European Union NUTS 2 regions

Thousands of studies deal with and analyse convergence. Initially, at least for European countries accessing the European Union, it was about nominal convergence, some macroeconomic indicators clearly established by the Maastricht Treaty. Then real convergence turned into the study interest of researchers. Regarding real convergence, even if the number of the studies is impressive, there is not yet a common opinion about the best way to measure it. For many years, the most used indicator when measuring real convergence was gross domestic product per capita at national or regional level. Nowadays, many studies are questioning the importance of convergence based on gross domestic product per capita regarding sustainable development and well-being. The European Union is also more and more concerned over the disparities shown by the social progress of its Member States, as the European Pillar of Social Rights has been signed in November 2017, structured around 20 key principles. Going beyond gross domestic product per capita our research is considering employment indicators aiming to highlight the trend of disparities across European Union's NUTS2 regions.