Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between digital skills and employment and in this way accentuate importance of policy interventions for improving digital literacy.Design/methodology/approach: Using Eurostat data, this paper demonstrates statistically significant correlation between digital skills and employment rates in EU.Findings: This implies why it is so important for governments and employers to seek, propose and implement new strategies to promote digital inclusion, literacy and the training not only for new ICT professionals but also for the whole workforce.Social implications: Digital skills, particularly digital literacy, are an important factor for socio-economic development of the society and employability of the labour force. Without adequate digital literacy, it is not possible to participate in the economy and the digital society, particularly having in mind the digital transformation that the world of work is experiencing in the content and the organisation. Beyond the work environment, it also affects the way people live and communicate.Originality/value: In this paper, the importance and definition of digital literacy are elaborated, explaining the measurement of digital literacy and skills, as well as the relation between digital literacy and employability.

The evolution of modern healthcare underscores the crucial question of societal priorities in development. When distributing finite healthcare resources, decision-makers must weigh numerous factors and navigate a range of sometimes conflicting criteria, including equity, access, fairness, and effectiveness. This chapter aims to survey the social implications of digital literacy as a pivotal element for the optimal advancement of P5 medicine, with the objective of enhancing healthcare services. The untapped potential of telemedicine and other emerging P5 technologies remains substantial in terms of their integration into routine medical practice. Adequate digital literacy among both healthcare providers and users stands as a vital prerequisite for the successful adoption and further evolution of these innovations. Coupled with improved health literacy, these factors collectively should contribute to the provision of superior healthcare services and consequently to the overall well-being of the populace.

Long-term unemployment (when a person is jobless for more than 12 months) can have serious negative consequences for the individual, society and its economic system. People who are unemployed for a long-term period find it more difficult to be employed as time goes by. Long-term unemployed persons often have limited employability, due to their low level of educational attainment, loss of skills and the substantial expenditures that are necessary to restore these skills. They also face significantly lower earnings and restricted career prospects. The participation rate of the long-term unemployed in employment programmes is usually very low. The article considers the significance of long-term unemployment in Croatia and measures for its reduction.

Local Action Groups LAGs are tri-sectoral bodies in which the economic and civil sectors in partnership with the public sector use EU policy funds for rural development. In such a decentralized approach to community led local development there is a risk of excessive municipal interference and principles of bottom-up development can be compromised. The basic assumption by which the leading public sector is trying to justify itself as having a better administrative capacity that can help LAGs to attract and absorb subsidies is statistically tested in this paper. Example of Croatia has shown that “municipalisation” of local partnerships have no justifications, as increasing the share of public partners in the membership structure reduces LAG effectiveness in attracting project subsidies, and in the same time municipalities that prove stronger absorptive capacity through larger share of EU funds in their budget, show no positive influence transferred to LAGs in which they are members.

Many recent studies have highlighted the importance of quality of governance and institutions for economic performance. According to New Institutional Economics, the quality of governance and institutions is a fundamental precondition for sustained increases in prosperity, well-being, and territorial cohesion. The quality of governance influences people’s health, their access to basic services, social trust, and political legitimacy. Governance encompasses the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised, and its performance can be measured. In this chapter we use the World Bank’s measure Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). The aim of the chapter is to highlight the variation of the quality of government between regions of Scandinavia and South East Europe and to analyse recent changes in South East Europe. Not surprisingly, Scandinavian regions outperform all other EU regions in quality of government, and the situation has been stable over time. In South East Europe, the situation has improved, although at a slow pace. Whereas the rule of law and government efficiency seem to be steadily increasing, the fight against corruption has been less successful.