Reducing inequalities within and among countries is one of the main tenets of the sustainable development paradigm and has become an important pillar at the European Union level. By adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, EU countries have committed themselves to meet targets against which progress in reducing inequalities can be measured. Through the present research, we aim to analyze and assess the extent to which EU countries will achieve the specific SDG 10 targets. Based on data published by Eurostat for the period 2010–2020, we forecast the trends of the indicators until the year 2030, using a model based on the AAA (Holt–Winters) version of exponential smoothing (ETS), to assess the degree to which the assumed targets will be reached. For more detailed information, we used dynamic indices to analyze the dynamics of the progress achieved. The results showed that it is difficult to clearly distinguish one or more countries as part of a group of high or low performers in terms of the efforts made and the effects achieved in reducing inequalities. However, we could mention Poland as a good and very good performer on most of the indicators analyzed. As opposite examples, we can mention Bulgaria and Greece, for which more attention and involvement are needed in adopting measures to correct the negative trend forecast.

Reducing inequalities for EU citizens and promoting upward convergence is one of the priorities on the agenda of the European Commission and, certainly, inequality will be a very important public policy issue for years to come. Through this research we aim to investigate EU labor market inequalities, reflected by the specific indicators proposed for Goal 8 assumed by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, based on cluster analysis for all the 27 Member States. The research results showed encouraging results from the perspective of convergence in the EU labor market, but also revealed a number of analyzed variable effects that manifested regional inequalities that were generated in the medium and long term. Based on the observations made, we want to provide information for policy-makers, business practitioners, and academics so as to constitute solid ground for identifying good practices and proposing to implement policies aimed at reducing existing inequalities and supporting sustainable development.

Starting from the statistics and the realities of the labor market in Romania and to obtain a wider perspective regarding the social, economic, and demographic implications of the work force mobility we used the results from a previous research, carried out through a questionnaire which was distributed online. The previous research (Cojocaru 2020) underlying this article, was performed on a sample of 157 persons giving valid answers, from a total of 183 filled questionnaires, representing 85,8% compliance degree. The subjects are aged between 18 and 60 years and belong to the various socio-professional categories. Therefore, starting from the answers of the interviewed people from this investigation carried out with the help of the online questionnaire, for a more detailed analysis of the expectations of the Romanian emigrant, we decided to use the binomial ordinal logistic regression model, with cumulated probabilities, based on the proportionality of chances (cumulated logit model). This research is structured and published in two parts, the first part including the introduction, the presentation of the research methodology. Results and discussions (the analysis of the variable change income and the analysis of the variable qualification), and the second part results and discussions (the analysis of the variable labor conditions, the analysis of the variable duration and the analysis of the variable satisfaction) and conclusions.Copyright© 2020 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.

This article aims, through research methods such as quantitative and qualitative analysis (empirical and descriptive), as well as comparison and interpretation, to highlight the composition and trends in the EU labor market between 2010-2020, given the link and mutual conditioning between socio-economic phenomena and the labor market, as part of the realities and trends of European social policy. Thus, the aim was to identify the differences between the Member States of the European Union, but also compared to the EU average, by analyzing the performance and the degree of fulfillment of the indicators pre-established by public policies, as specific objectives of social policy, aiming to ensure an adequate and non-discriminatory framework so that all citizens have equal access to resources and opportunities.In order to present the trend in the evolution of employment, we analyzed the indicators regarding the active population, activity rates, employment rate, employed population, unemployment, unemployment rate, inactive population, but also the Job vacancy rate (annual average). Last but not least, we analyzed a delicate issue at the level of some member states of the European Union, highlighting both shortcomings in the transition from the education system to the labor market, as well as shortcomings in terms of employment of a category of population, namely NEET rate.