Now, I welcome our guest of honor, Dubravka Swice, Vice President for Democracy and Demography of the European Commission. Our colleague Tanya Ristova, Chair of the SEDEC Commission, are already here in the podium. And this debate is about this initiative, and especially about the roots of one of the main challenges that regions all across Europe have. That's to have people there, to retain talent, to have the opportunity to have people that are in all regions, and a possibility to make them a part of progress and development. Now, the way our debate is organized is we will have initial remarks by Vice President Sweetsha. We'll have then the floor to our chair, Ristova. We will have from political groups. Our first Vice President will also have a statement. I know that we have a lot of requests for the floor, but unfortunately, Madam Vice President, we are aware that you need to... Okay, so Madam Vice President has to live at 4.15. Let's hope we have the chance to have everybody and then to have your final remarks. If not, when Madam Vice President is set to leave, we'll give her the opportunity to address in final remarks, and then, if you wish, we'll continue with the debate. Madam Vice President, it's my pleasure and honor to give you the floor for 10 minutes. Thank you, President. Good afternoon, dear ladies and gentlemen, dear members of this committee. Thank you for the invitation to join you today. You know that I always like to come here. It's always pleasure to meet with you, to exchange ideas on how to ensure that our policies are targeted to the needs of citizens right where it is needed. This helps to increase the trust in our democracy and trust in democratic institutions that are designed to serve citizens, and I do not have to mention the many challenges faced by democracy today at all levels of governance. With that in mind, I'm proud to present to you today our recent communication on harnessing talent in European regions. As you know, the communication was adopted in January, together with the second edition of our report on impact of demographic change. It is not the main focus of our discussion today, but I want to start with a few words on the new demographic change report. It is significant that this communication on harnessing talent would not have happened if we had not seen evidence of demographic change, indeed, rather acute demographic change. We see it happening right across the European Union. This change is having a wide range of effects on a considerable number of our regions. The report provides all levels of governance with a much-needed, wider demographic context. Armed with this knowledge, the report will help to make our policymaking more robust and targeted. This is one of the reasons why the communication builds on this report, because it takes demographic change as a point of departure. You will remember that we originally intended this communication to be about brain drain. This is term used in my mission letter, but I have to be honest with you. It took us some time to be able to rightly capture this experience of brain drain. It took us some time to correctly identify regions most affected, and how they were being affected by this loss of skilled people, a loss that seriously threatens their long-term prosperity. We call this a talent development trap. It occurs in regions with insufficient skilled workers and university graduates to offset the impact of demographic change. This communication identifies 82 affected regions in 16 member states. We are talking about 30 percent of the population of the European Union. Can we divide these 82 regions into two categories? I hope that you cannot see them on the map. Yes, you can. So I hope that you can see them on the map behind me, represented in two colors, the red and the yellow. The first red group is a group of 46 regions that are already affected by this talent development trap. They face a rapid decline of their working-age population and a low share of university graduates. This makes it difficult for these regions to innovate and improve their productivity. These 46 regions of the red group account for 16 percent of the population of the European Union. Most of them are less economically developed than the rest of the European Union. Around 30 percent of their population lives in rural areas. The second yellow group is a group of 36 regions that run a serious risk of falling into a talent development trap. This is because they are acutely affected by the loss of their younger population, particularly those aged 15 to 34 years old. And what is the result? It means these regions will not have the necessary skills to ensure the economic and social development. This group accounts for 13 percent of the population of the European Union. This means that in all we are talking about, almost one-third of the population of the European Union. Both groups face common structural challenges. For example, inefficiencies in their labor market or further inefficiencies in their training and adult learning system. They face low performance in the areas of innovation, public governance and business development. And they typically face low access to services. This communication also provides examples of regions dealing with the loss of talent and brain drain. This sharing of experiences is very important. It will be further developed through a specific tool called the talent booster mechanism. It is designed to create a structured sharing of good practices. The beauty of this unique tool is that strategies can be tailored to the situation on the ground adjusted to take local characteristics into account. The purpose of the talent booster mechanism and its eight pillars that you can see on the slide is to very help unleash the talents of these regions in a very concrete manner. The idea is to support the regions in training, retaining and attracting the people, the skills and the competencies needed to address the impact of the demographic transition. The first three pillars concern direct technical support. Ambition is to launch before summer the calls for the pilot project that will assist around ten regions in a talent development trap to elaborate comprehensive strategies to attract and retain talents. Additionally, and with the same timing, we will also launch the new initiative on smart adaptation of regions to demographic changes in cooperation with OECD. This will help regions to develop new approaches to the demographic transition and to initiate structural reforms. And finally, the third pillar is about tailor-made technical expertise to design and implement reforms that will be offered via the 2023 call for proposals of the technical support instrument. The fourth and fifth pillars concern the financial assistance and are all about mobilizing cohesion policy through its 2021-2027 shared management programs to help regions to enhance their attractiveness for talents. The last three pillars concern the dissemination of knowledge and the analytical work. For now, I want to say that when drafting this communication, we discovered how difficult it was with the data that we had to capture the experience of brain drain that we were looking into. It is becoming increasingly clear that the capacity needs to be developed at European level to gather and assess data and expertise in order to provide guidance on the appropriate solutions. When I say capacity, I mean a structure, I mean a body at European level which will be dealing with this phenomenon. I want to say a few words on the MFF midterm review. It is not yet time to discuss the content, but it is already clear that emerging financing needs stemming from recent unexpected events in Ukraine and with energy are putting the European Union budget under pressure. And it is also increasingly clear that demographic change underpins the different transitions we are going through and that it needs to be factored in our policy and budgetary reflections. The challenges faced by the regions identified in this communication must be addressed through a robust set of investments, reforms and place-based strategies. These are detailed in the communication together with a set of successful regional examples. The midterm review of cohesion policy programs, not of the MFF, is scheduled for 2025 and will be steered in the 2024 European semester. It provides an excellent opportunity for the regions concerned to adapt their programs to meet demographic challenges. I urge this committee to encourage these regions to take up the opportunities that are being provided. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Europe has got talent. And it is vital that we nurture this talent because this is crucial to our efforts to ensure our competitiveness. This is increasingly important given the demographic transition in the European Union which we are going through. With all the challenges and the opportunities it presents, even the European Council in February has acknowledged that we have problems with demography and demographic challenges in its conclusions from the 9th of February. The communication on harnessing talent in Europe and its talent booster mechanism marked the start of our initiatives under the European Year of Skills. It will be formally launched in May, but we cannot wait until May to deliver for citizens where and when they lead it most. Addressing demographic change is key to building a fairer and more resilient society. With this communication, we come with a new category of regions facing demographic challenges. We also come with fresh money. We come with the new talent booster mechanism. It is solid. It delivers where it is needed. And the time is ripe or mature to act on it. It is now up to you in the regions to take full advantage of all the new initiatives this communication offers. We cannot deliver without the support of you, without the support of regions. You are our key partner in helping us to translate the policy efforts into realities on the ground. For this, I want to thank you in advance and look forward to hearing your views. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Vice President. Now, our Chair, Tanya Ristova, you have the floor for four minutes. Thank you, President, dear Commissioner Switzer, dear members of the European Committee of the Regions, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to begin saying that we welcome the European Commission of Communication on Harnessing Talent in Europe's regions and underline that the Committee of the Regions supports the overall objective of the proposal with particular regard to the prevention of disparities and geographical divide between regions and cities. The Committee of the Regions Resolution on Harnessing Talent in Europe to be adopted tomorrow recognizes the need for cities and regions to very swiftly capitalize on the potential of their dedicated strategies in order to create talent attraction ecosystems that are tailor-made and place-based. This is particularly relevant for regions that are falling into a talent development trap and particularly affected by low birth rates, a decline in the working age population, a low share of university and higher education graduates, and brain drain. In my capacity as Chair of the SEDC Commission, I would like to underline that the Committee of the Regions will engage local and regional governments to take the advantage of the European era of skills when implementing their strategies for attracting and retaining talents in our territories. I would like to highlight our great expectations for rapid and effective implementation of the eighth proposals of the talent booster mechanism at European, regional and local level. The Committee of the Regions considers regions specifically affected by the green and digital transitions, such as coal and carbon-intensive regions, as well as the automotive regions, to be the prime candidates for the talent booster mechanism, as they will obviously have significant number of workers in need of upskilling and re-skilling. From practical experience, we all know that economic and social development at local and regional level has the better chance for succeeding when it is operating in a decentralized system, and this is not only because at the local level we are closest to citizens, but also because at that level we can have better consideration of the economic and social specificity of our regions. As already mentioned, the policy response should encompass a comprehensive set of measures elaborated and implemented through place-based approaches tailored to local specificities tiered by the cohesion policy and complemented by sectoral strategies. I would like to mention two very important aspects, and these are brain drain and demographic changes, as already mentioned by in the previous moments. The loss of a young and educated workforce is a huge challenge for local communities throughout the whole European Union, and brain drain and related phenomena needs to be understood and assessed in the European Union in the context of the multi-level governments. Local and regional authorities can set local alliances which they will involve with stakeholders and contribute to the design and implementation of local policy that help to mitigate brain drain issues. In the long term, any change or transition to a sustainable and competitive economic model which is based on the knowledge economy would seem very difficult to be achieved if the scenario where disparities between regions and are widening. Therefore, the Committee of the Regions wants to see local and regional authorities recognized as strategic partners in the design, implementation and monitoring of the relevant strategies. Thank you for your attention. Thank you so much. Now we go to political groups. Member Bach, you have the floor for four minutes. Mr President, dear commissioners, first of all I would like to congratulate you and the European Commission for your concrete response to the problems related to shrinking working-age population and brain drain. The talent booster mechanism announced by the European Commission is very welcome and urgently needs to be implemented. Why? Currently, in a way or in another, 82 regions in 16 member states accounting for almost 30 percent of the population of the EU are affected by the brain drain and by its negative impact. If left unaddressed, the brain drain may affect the long-term sustainability of the European project and even may affect the future of the European Union as a union. Why? Because a sharp working-age population decline in combination with a phenomenon of brain drain leads to poverty and increased territorial disparities in many regions of the European Union. It is clear if left unaddressed, the phenomenon of brain drain will feed the extremists, the populists, and it would result in a growing number of people and communities feeling left behind. So what do we need to acknowledge? First, is to recognize that we have a problem and here it's a good beginning, a good start to move forward. Second, we have to acknowledge the importance of the freedom of movement in the European Union and under no circumstances should we question the freedom of movement which represents one of the greatest achievements of our union and if I may say so, it's a religion in the European Union. But third, should be crystal clear, everyone is free to move voluntary inside of the European Union but no one should be forced to leave the country due to the poverty and other economical reasons. So what do we need to do now in order to diminish the negative impact of the brain drain and shrinking working-age population? First, to improve economic conditions, jobs, salaries, and opportunities in all those regions. One of the primary reasons people leave their home countries is to seek better economical conditions. Second, to invest in education and encourage entrepreneurship. Third, quality of life and improve work-life balance. Fourth, capitalizing on the huge potential offered by the rural area and supporting projects related to urban rural hub and smart villages. The rural area make up 80 percent of the territory of the EU and are home to 70 percent of the EU population. Rural regions are particularly exposed to the twin impact of demographic decline and insufficient talent development. Dear Commissioner Schwitza, we ask for urgent and concrete measures on the ground in order to diminish the brain drain, shrinking working-age population, and to support harnessing talents in the European Union. For that, we need a strong task force coordinated by you, by Commissioner Ferriera and Commissioner Schmidt, and together with the local and regional authorities to act with very concrete measures to improve the present situation. We ask that these concrete measures to be financed with direct financial assistance provided under existing instruments and based on eight pillars mechanisms which you just described. We ask for post-2027 cohesion policy to include specific EU-level regional targeting and earmarking for harnessing talents in the EU. And last but not least, the spirit of cohesion and harnessing talents in Europe's regions should be embedded in every policy of the European Union. And of course, we want that harnessing talents to be treated not just as a technicality in European, but as a political priority. Thank you. Before moving forward, I would like to ask all members, President Derum, to reduce as much as possible the talk beside the interventions, because it's not clear that we can hear if there is no silence in the room. So I ask you, I ask you that. Member Rosa Balastores, you have the floor for four minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much, President. Madam Vice President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to first of all express our thanks for the very complete work done by the European Commission to identify the challenges facing the regions of the EU when it comes to attracting and retaining talent amongst qualified workers. The so-called talent development trap does undermine territorial social and economic cohesion. Connectivity and industrialisation of regions are key factors to change this situation. We would therefore call on the Commission to address regional disparities through a reforced cohesion policy. Madam Vice President, the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the consequent energy crisis, all of these without any doubt have increased the vulnerability all of us feel, particularly young people. And as politicians at different levels, regional, local, we have the responsibility of setting the necessary conditions whereby we can offer stability but also hope to the youngest. Only if we manage to show solidarity and provide new opportunities can we change our shared future. Retaining and attracting talent without a doubt is vital, and for that we need new economic models of investment, which will create jobs. So that people have sufficiently high salaries and decent housing, two key factors for developing a proper project. And I think actually, if I apply this to my region, Extremadura, the green transition, the digital transition, without a doubt together, will make it possible to create new skilled jobs in Extremadura. We're going to see for the first time a synthetic diamond factory opening for semiconductors and also super condensers and a giga electric battery factory will all open. Now, all of this is partly financed through the Recovery and Resilience Facility and that will provide new opportunities, new skilled jobs. This year is the year of skills. It's the year to take into account just how important it is for us to skill, reskill and upskill and for us to attract the necessary investment in universities and also to provide guidance at university level, guiding people towards the new jobs that are being developed where we don't have enough people working yet. So there are all of these new opportunities. We shouldn't look just at universities, of course, but also the importance of vocational training and sandwich courses. So we really need all of these options to provide our companies with the workers that they'll need in Extremadura. They're going to need 20,000 to 30,000 new skilled people over the next few years. Finally, you mentioned something that's extremely important when it comes to developing new economic and social models in regions, which is the new European Bauhaus. And that is something that we have to work on and deal with this at a cross-border level. That's what we've been doing in Extremadura where we've been working very closely with our dear neighbour Portugal. Thank you. The floor goes to member Yasna Gabrić for three minutes. Thank you to the chairman, Mr. Szuicja and dear colleagues. I, the gravitation of great urban... Commissioner, colleagues, president, development... It's very important, therefore, that we develop talent. And we've done our utmost to retain young people in our regions and to create new jobs. Fortunately, we have a good high-tech company which has decided to establish itself in our area and to get there with this company. We've tried to find solutions to this problem. We've tried to find solutions to this problem. We've tried to find solutions to this problem. We've tried to find solutions to this problem. We've tried to find solutions to this company. We've tried to find solutions to this company. We've tried to find solutions to create jobs and to retain young people in our region. And I hope that soon, also with the help of the JTF mechanism, we'll be able to build those jobs in our region at the micro level that we can do a lot to ensure that we retain people in our regions, including regions which do not contain large cities. Together with the EU, we can be successful in building new jobs, creating new jobs. And if we're lucky, we'll be able to create a city within the city, partly through these high-tech companies and expertise. But also, we need new schools, new training, schools, kindergartens, and high-quality housing as well in our areas and regions. We need to look at why people are leaving certain areas. People like living in rural areas, but you also need jobs in those areas to retain people. You need good internet connection, good services, local services, and a cultural offering, all of which are part of a good quality of life. Above all, for the younger generations, we want to recruit and retain new young people. We need a comprehensive offering, economic, digital cohesion, need to be in the focal points, and local and regional authorities need to work together with you, together with the EU to ensure this, to take the right steps in the right direction, to make sure that our rural areas are not emptied of people. Thank you. I've just received a message from technical assistants saying that it's better if we could speak seated because image and sound is better calibrated for interventions from each one seat. So leave this to your consideration. The floor goes to our colleague Anna Magyar for two and a half minutes. Dear Commissioner, the EU's population growth has slowed down in recent decades. Until year 2030, EU countries are likely to be affected the population decline. Concerning the population of regions, two of the most worrying trends in need of urgent action are demographic decline and brain drain. Demographic decline results in a continuously decreasing workforce and economic stagnation. The aging of populations also places an increased strain on pensions, low health care and so on. Brain drain has led to regions losing local talented young people. They are leaving due to a lack of opportunities and opportunities are declining because young people are leaving. This leads to a slow emptying of regions. Ladies and gentlemen, we are all here to defend the interests of regions, but we have to act swiftly because we are running out of time We welcome the initiative on harnessing talented regions. The EU must step up to support regions in keeping their workforce. The skilling and upskilling are crucial to help workers develop the skills needed to remain competitive during times of a green and digital transition. Boosting digital transition of regions will be essential. Digital infrastructure ensures that teleworking, e-services and digital education are accessible to everyone in regions, even in rural areas. Digital cohesion is a tool of interoperability of regions in the long run. We encourage local and regional authorities to conduct horizontal dialogue with each other concerning local best practices in tackling brain drain and demographic decline. Last but not least, our ECR group strongly supports the investment in family-friendly policies that have proven to be very successful in the past and will help us to ensure that our youth can start a family without being forced to leave their homeland. Ladies and gentlemen, please remember that the COR has accepted an opinion in year 2020 about demographic challenges. One of the statements was about how to decrease the fertility gap. The opinion expressed that the most important task in the EU is to support families in order to be able to grow up children. I am sure this will bring a brighter future in our regions. Thank you. And here now the floor goes to Member McCarthy. You have the floor for two minutes. Yeah, I can mark this up. Thank you, President. I want to start in English. Or Irish, rather. Thank you, Commissioner, for your speech today. I come from Cork City in Ireland, and it's quite a good city in terms of attracting talent and investment, but at the same time, just to give you an example of what's happening, there's quite a lot of young people in their 20s who have higher level education, who are leaving Ireland and who are going to third countries like the United States. Recently, the Eighth Report on Cohesion on Regional and Social Policy stated that it is expected that half of all union citizens will be living in regions whose population is shrinking, so it doesn't really matter where our regions are located. Now, we are all swimming against the tide, and we all need to face up these problems together. Commissioner, I authored the Committee of the Region's Opinion on Small Urban Areas as key actors to manage just transition. The Small Urban Areas are home to 43% of the EU populations, so areas fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. And I think any solution to the demographic problem entails not only engaging them, but actually a complex set of measures spanning across a number of policy areas, and that's why I welcome your graph here today. But I think we cannot repeat enough how much we need essential public services, and that includes high-speed internet connectivity, decent transport networks, health care education to be recognised, and provided as a basic need in rural areas and small towns. And all other sexual policies will prove to be ineffective without those foundations in place. We fully support the initiatives proposed underneath the talent booster mechanism, and fully support your inclusion of one-stop shops. And yes, I agree with you. Europe has got talent, but many smaller municipalities just don't have administration capacity to stay on top of opportunities. Would that be New European Bauhaus or cross-border cooperation that are struggling to avail of some of the opportunities? So partnerships and cooperation with neighbouring areas, both rural areas and bigger cities and regions, are key. Thank you. And certainly we can support your steps as you presented here this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Now the floor goes to Tine Radindia for two minutes. Thank you, Chair. When speaking about harnessing the talent in the European region, we would just like to add something else to the debate that is already ongoing. Three points. One, some new regions are in greater risk due to environmental damage that was done through decades, and an even greater need of green and digital transition, like coal and carbon-intensive regions, and therefore need targeted policies to support talent transitions in these regions. Unprecedented number of citizens will need upskilling and risk-killing. Two, we on local and regional level should fully use the opportunities that European Year of Skills is bringing and start with the implementation of the strategies now to manage the talent that there is successfully. The most important focus of European Year of Skills is to promote skills and policies and social investments to address labour shortages for a better skilled workforce for the green future. Youth organizations should also be closely involved in the spirit of youth mainstreaming and the legacy of European Year of Youth, which connects greatly with the European Year of Skills. One of the common points, and that's my point number three, is that the common point between the two years is the call for more and more quality in education and training. We are expecting that education and training is equally accessible all across Europe and the barriers are removed. Next to it, we stress the importance that other knowledge centres such as community centres, youth centres, libraries, and local info points, artificial intelligence automation of existing models of production is a reality. It's here. Hence, lifelong learning opportunities should be a reality for every citizens that wish to redevelop his or her talents. Thank you. Thank you. First Vice President Sici Costas, you have the floor for three minutes. Thank you, Mr. President, dear Vice President Suica. The European Year 2023 is indeed dedicated to the development of skills and rightfully so. The European Committee of Regents fully supports it. As our objective is to strengthen territorial resilience in order to allow citizens to choose where to live and where to work despite the economic, the social, or the territorial handicaps that their own regions may suffer from. But this exercise, Vice President, cannot be completed in one year, in particular when the reasons of their handicaps are natural or endemic. This is particular true, for instance, for the over 70 million Europeans living in islands or the quarter of the EU population that live in rural areas. They all struggle to compete under the same rules within the single market, which should be a level play field. Unfortunately, for many, this is not the case. So the talent booster mechanism is indeed welcome, as it can contribute to tackle a number of issues they need to face, such as the brain drain or the demographic transition. What we need is to help young people who want to live and work in their own regions. And how can we do that? But by offering to them a way to maximize their own talents. This is urgent now, also because insufficient skilled workers need to offset the impact of the democratic transition. So I would like to make a call to all of our colleagues, in particular those coming from regions affected by green and digital transitions, to put forward their candidatures to test this new mechanism in its pilot phase this year. Your active role will indeed encourage skilled people of our regions to choose to remain there. Dear Vice President, we need increasing both the demand for talent by encouraging more dynamic and diverse economic opportunities and the talent supply via tailored training schemes minoring the local labor needs. We also need to promote life outside the densely populated cities, for instance by boosting remote working, which means 4G and 5G connection in rural areas. From the COR, we will continue helping you in monitoring the green and digital reforms implementation and in enhancing the skills anticipation. This can be done by developing territorial indicators. Indeed, we believe that the territorial proofing could help you for better capturing the reasons of the shrinking labor force, why some regions suffer from low share or higher education and the motivations behind the departure of young people, which are the main issues at the very core of your initiatives. And we will do this with a view to leave one, no one behind, no place behind. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now the floor goes to member Francisco Gonzalez Gonzalez for one minute. Thank you very much, President, dear Vice President. Talent is fundamental for the rural world to still continue to exist. The Rioja government therefore at the end of 2021 set up a group made of 30 young people who'd volunteered aged between 18 and 30 years of age, 15 men, 15 women, the so-called G30. And we asked them if young people are the future of the community, why don't we try and imagine a rural Rioja of the future that young people can lead? It's a unique project in the region, designing strategic proposals and proposals of social innovation to address the demographic challenges. The idea is to ensure that people remain in the area, provide professional and personal opportunities in the rural areas, try to come up with imaginative options for access to housing and try to make sure that people carry on living in the countryside. I'll record only one minute. Vice President Suica, dear colleagues, brain drain has become an increasingly pressing issue for regions in the past decades. Another lesser discussed aspect is that brain drain also exacerbates urbanization, therefore the problems of big cities. Air, water and noise pollution all cause health risks. Traffic congestion and overcrowding can lead to loss of quality of life and access to resources. Increased competition for housing and resources often leads to socioeconomic divisions and in many cases, homelessness. As we saw during COVID, the largest cities are more vulnerable to pandemic. People are realizing that urbanization, while practical for many, is an unsustainable long-term. Addressing brain drain, we can hit two birds with one stone. By helping regions regain their strength, we can also help eliminate the adverse effects of increasing urbanization on cities and the environment. Thank you. Member Putsu, one minute. Microphone. Thank you, President. Marque in Italy is one of the 46 regions which already has fallen into the trap, the talent development trap. And there are many others that risk having the risk of this happening.  To actually escape this trap, we need to work on attracting tourists, but economic investment too. Regional programs so that we are seen as a transitional region and we can actually use all the options open to us. Thank you to the Commission for the talent booster mechanism. We've received funding under the European Year of Youth and now we have to also look at attracting talent. And we need a policy that's based on regions and regionalization to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Member Bruno Ranic, one minute. Dear colleagues, I represent a region in Croatia, which is currently one of the most advanced regions in Croatia. We have 13 centers of excellence and most of them are concentrated on higher education. We are currently very busy discussing the higher education. However, nobody among us has posed a question about vocational education. This is precisely the area where we are experiencing lack of workforce. And we know that plumbers and electricians and masons are occupations without which we cannot go on living. We know that all the programs on the European level will also need workforces with high school education. We, as regional leaders... One minute. Frau Vizepräsidentin, Herr Präsident, Kolleginnen und Kollegen. Chair, from our point of view, we think there are a lot of positive approaches in the Commission's communication for developing skills. And we want to strengthen this in Berlin as well. We're having a conference in the framework of the European Year of Skills. So we're talking here about strengthening skills, particularly in regards to the digital and green transitions where there will be many jobs in the future. So we want to gather as many experiences as possible. We want to look at good, fair jobs, well-paid jobs, which can be created in these areas and which are also available to those, perhaps with specific needs, people with disabilities, et cetera, as well. So we want to bring in as many experiences as possible. We want to make sure that refugees have access to this as well so that we can harness their talent as well. And finally, we want to get the experience of young people as well, particularly those who have difficulties accessing the labor market. Thank you. Please, Ovech, one minute. Thank you. Commissioner and I come from the same country. And unfortunately, our country experiences accelerated population decline and brain drain. In the last three decades, we lost more than a million people. That's why talent management policies, coupled with demographic and cohesion policies, are among the most important policies for Croatia. But there is no point in investing in talent development if your talents once equipped with knowledge and skills leave your country. And you lose then twice.  On the other hand, country to which they go benefits twice. Therefore, we are highly exposed to talent development trap. For these reasons, I welcome talent booster mechanisms in conjunction with stronger cohesion policy. The goal of retaining talent in our countries go hand in hand with increasing development disparity among member states and European regions. That is the only way to slow down brain drain and raise the resilience of affected countries and regions. Thank you. Member Schwartzkiefer, you have the floor for one minute. Thank you very much. We're talking about regions that return very difficult regions. And I feel particularly called upon to speak on these regards because I can see these things in my own home and I can see how difficult it is to find a way out of these difficulties. In many cases, these regions are left alone because in recent decades, central governments have left them behind. In Hungary, for example, we see that there might be a potential solution at the moment working together with local and regional authorities as well. So what could the commission do? Well, it can take into account the development of these regions in their strategies and making sure that the LRAs get more money as well. We think that this could solve the problem of talent development, but also very many other problems as well. Thank you. Thank you. Member Zlatko Zivkov, one minute. Dear Vice President, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, as a mayor of a community that falls within the talent development trap, I have no choice but to support the general objectives that aim to tackle the issues concerning the decrease of population of working age. In my community, one of the main objectives is to support young families and vocational education in order to retain future workers in our city. In Montana, we are now experiencing a huge demand for skilled workers. In order to deal with these issues, we need education. We need a greater potential in public governance and an increased access to services. And we also need a better quality of life and standard of living. Thank you. Dear Commissioner, I want to welcome the proposal of commission concerning talent booster mechanism, but I must draw your attention towards one of the most impactful LRAs in matters related to the labor force in Europe concerning the automotive industry transition. Building on my report on mobility transformation and its corollary just transition, my first recommendation is to directly correlate the vocational training efforts with ample investments at the local and regional level. I must also note that the small urban and the big urban areas will be mostly hitting this transformative process. Without investment that require and guide professional reconversion, there is a risk that the new qualification will not meet the labor market requirements because they are not fitting as such or because they are fitting in another geographical area. In this last case, we have to bear in mind that for objective reasons, the internal geographic mobility of the labor force in Eastern Europe and member states is very low while the migration abroad represents a viable option for a mass part of the population. Thank you. Let's not make the green transition another booster from East to West migration. Thank you. Member Raveem Stren, you have the floor for one minute. Dear commissioner, dear president, ladies and gentlemen, I very much appreciate talent booster mechanism. I very much appreciate co-resolution mentioning so many times rural areas. We do have nice strategies. We do have nice visions. We do have nice policies. We do have nice tools and we do have nice discussions like today one. But as a proud rural citizen, I strongly feel we do miss real action. We need to use all the policies, tools, holistically in synergies. We need to bring quality of life and opportunities into those regions. For example, using modern technologies and we need to talk especially to young talented people living those regions not to think on their behalf. I do that. I do talk to young people in my region. I do talk to young people in European youth rural parliament and other bodies.  Member Calbecki, one minute. Mrs. Commissioner, Mr. President. Commissioner President, I would like to thank for your proposal. This is a very important tool that will enable us to retain talent in our regions, especially in regions threatened by depopulation. We have some tools. We have our cohesion policy. We have newer perspective. The community led groups and here we can stop this phenomenon. I would like to invite you to Torun during our not commit commission meeting. We will present a rural farm and we will meet the local community, young people and we will discuss how to develop strategies in order to be able to positively impact the current situation. Thank you. Rady, one minute. Thank you, Mr. President. Commissioner President. Thank you. Vocational training is vital to increase the competitiveness of our companies through development of the quality of talent and skills. In Mercia, we are working hard on, in fact, increasing the offer and supply of training qualifications, increasing the number of places available by 39,000. That provides opportunities for our young people and people who want to continue their training throughout their lives. We also feel that vocational training, professional training is also a key tool for combating early school leaving, which is a key challenge for Mercia and we're promoting basic vocational training and that the take up of this in Mercia is increasing on a yearly basis. We're trying to keep pupils who are at risk of early school leaving in the system. We also think it's vital to pay particular attention to people that have difficulties in developing the education and training they need. Thank you. Mr. Androvich, one minute. Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to welcome the report by the European Commission. And I would also like to say that the demographic development and the measures towards greater attraction of young people are of great importance. It is very important to ask ourselves how we can offer new jobs to talented young people. You, Madam Vice President, have visited Virovitica and our incubator that has in the meantime expanded in many other areas. We are very busy supporting young people and young talents in many different areas. So we have almost no vacancies in our programs. We have managed to increase the number of newly established companies. Member Turk, you have the floor for one minute. Thank you very much. Of course, we definitely support this resolution. I think it is quite clear that the regions that have been affected by the green digital transition more than others, definitely in a position where they need more help than others. There are many workers that need reskilling and upskilling. And in such a situation, the cohesion policy and the transitional fund are very important. In Croatia, I think a very good example is the CISAC and Moslavina County. This used to be a carbon-heavy region. However, they have oriented their development towards green technologies and gaming industry. And this was done thanks to the European funds. And allow me one more thing. Maybe it is now time for additional capacity building at the level of the European Union so that we could allow young people to be in the focus of our attention. Just one minute. President, colleagues, the government of Cantabria has a regional strategy faced with the demographic challenge of fighting depopulation, running from 2021 to 2027, trying to keep people in the autonomous community of Cantabria, changing the current dynamic. And then again also, Cantabria is taking part in an OECD project, which is the Strategic Governance Plan for rural depopulation, together with four Spanish autonomous communities. And we would like to congratulate the Commission on the communication and the talent booster mechanism, which will provide support for the 82 EU regions most affected by brain drain, which Cantabria is not one of them, but nonetheless, there is no doubt if we do nothing, other regions like mine will in the future also run the same risk of losing skilled people with a low level of university graduates or higher education graduates, or negative demography when it comes to people age between 19 and 30 years. So how can we help the Commission? We scoop each one minute. Microphone. I'm sorry. Dear commissioner, vice president, Svika, dear chair, Christova, dear colleagues, based on my experience from region Tarnava, Slovakia, talents are the most important building blocks of the economic growth. Due to demographic changes, extensive brain drain, but also growing effects of digital transformation, we have been struggling to ensure social progress and competitiveness of our region. This is why we have decided to invest our resources in educational and training improving skills and job performance, building on an existing strength and potential of Tarnava region. We are focusing on education up and rescuing of the workforce in our automotive sector, we say in our automotive region. For example, we are backing dual vocational education in our school, working with universities, youth organization, or various forms of interregional cooperation with automotive regions around the Europe. What is real important, I'm therefore calling the European Commission also in light of the European years of skills to continue founding the innovation skills and training. Thank you so much. Member Markoves-Lee Gash, you have the floor for one minute. Thank you, Mr. President. It is evident that today many European regions are faced with the challenges of negative demographic at migration trends. These effects are particularly observed in the mass immigration of the younger population. We often heard about the importance of harnessing human capital, but how to harness something that is systematically slipping away. In my hometown of Pragrada in Croatia, we have supported the establishment of higher education and vocational institutions. We continuously found original youth projects and engaged their delegates in our local budget planning. We strive to continue this trend and build on it. The European year of youth and subsequently this European year of skills to iterate the importance of skills and talents for Europe's economic future. Furthermore, the European Commission's communications that we are discussing today has shaped a set of fresh tools that should help boost talent in the most vulnerable of Europe's regions. Regions should use these framers to expand and develop talents for a modern labour market. Thank you. Antonio Vicens, Vicens, one minute. Gracias, President. Gracias, Vice President. Thank you very much, President, Madam Vice President. When we talk about retaining talent, it's particularly important to refer to areas with permanent geographical disadvantages such as out of most regions. And this is provided for in the TFEU. In the case of the islands, these are especially vulnerable to rapid changes in the labour market and they experience difficulties in diversifying their economies and keeping them competitive as a whole. And if we look at the demographic challenges, we also have to bear in mind that there are populational imbalances which can be either above or below the norm. Now, this is something that should not be forgotten. In conclusion, it's more necessary than ever that we have a territorial analysis of the challenges facing our regions so as to be able to correctly address the major challenges that we have ahead of us. Thank you. Member Frankowski, one minute. Dear Mr. President, I'm going to speak Polish. I would like to pay attention to the need for system solutions and potentially strengthening. I think that we need systemic solutions and to reinforce regions and cities to make sure that they keep talent. And we also should encourage people to come back to national markets, in particular people who would like to open their startups in the most important sectors. We have to remember about the series of crises that we have, such as the pandemic or the war. This results in a situation when there are fewer and fewer talents and we need European support. In Warsaw, for example, companies cannot obtain funding for new initiatives because they have no access to payments from European policies. And to many companies, innovative companies, it will become a significant barrier. One minute. President, Frau Kommissar. President, Commissioner, skills and competences are things that are growing in our regions and communicators. There are things that are fostered in schools, kindergartens, companies, workplaces. And we need to thank all of these various different players and we need to link them all up together. That's what we need to work towards. Also, this is a year where we need to bring modern learning to the fore and foster that. We need to make sure that all kinds of different qualifications are recognized and promoted. We need to promote lifelong learning across the board in Europe that includes rural areas as well. We need to promote this in all areas, both urban and rural. And we need to make sure that skills are fostered in border regions in particular, that they take into account the specificities of border regions and that we can reach the targets that we have. And ultimately, we need to make sure that the community level is responsible for skills and driving skills. And I think that will mean the year of skills of success. One minute. Congratulations, President. First of all, I am very glad to see you all here. And I'm very glad that we are discussing our today's topic. European Union as a whole is under threat and especially the lesser developed areas. We are facing the following challenges, depopulation, migration towards the more developed countries and brain drain. One of the possible answers is most definitely an effective cohesion policy. That is why I find it very good that the Committee of Regions managed to continue supporting the cohesion policy within the multi-annual financial framework. This, however, is not sufficient. We have to go on looking for new solutions and new answers. The current war in Ukraine shows very clearly how it is important that every single member states must be able to resist such threats on its own. Microphone, please, for the speaker. It's open. Robotica yristettyne digitalisaation. Please close that microphone. Someone close the microphone. Now open you. Go ahead. It's not working. Could you change the place, please? Don't be nervous. You only have 10 seconds. I'll be quick. Thank you, Mr. President. Robotica yristettyne. Thank you, digitalization, artificial intelligence. These are essential aspects as we look to developing our economies. The models that we have are developing well on the basis of the theme that we have this year, Year of Skills. And we can very much bring this home in our European regions. In our region, we have managed to bring all of this together. Each child learns robotics, for example, at school. So all of these lessons are integrated into a number of school lessons. This is part of our daily lives, part of how we work. They also learn lots of other things, of course, students at schools, various different skills that will help them down the line when they work, developing projects, critical thinking, and research as well. They'll need all those skills in the future in Europe. Thank you. Grazie. Thank you, President. Thank you very much, Vice President Sveta, for the excellent work you're doing in the Commission, the talent booster mechanism, providing support for regions that are struck by decline in the working age population. But I think it's very relevant that this, in fact, is being presented in the European Year of Schools considering the phenomena, demographic phenomena facing our continent. We need to encourage the use of funds for programs that already exist to attract and retain talent. And on this final point, the different regions of the European Union do have to address the problem of brain drain, of young, skilled workers. Europe has everything it needs, talent, researchers, industry, or capacity, and also a good European Commission. And that's why I'm convinced that the history of the new deal of the world as it lives will be based on harnessing our skills and talents, and this is something that will be a success story. Thank you. And finally, members, Trugala, you have the floor for one minute. Thank you very much, indeed. I represent the lowest level of local governments, the rural areas, and indeed, as far as the infrastructure is concerned, and as far as the healthcare and all the issues that you have mentioned, culture, education, broadband, internet, indeed, it is very important, as you have mentioned, but how can we do it? You have been talking about migration, about brain drain, and I talk about young people escaping, running from those areas so that they make their lives better. So what can we do to stop this phenomenon, to enable the talents stay in the country? And I think tomorrow we're going to talk about cohesion as well. There should be one rule policy common for everybody. Thank you. And you have the floor for final remarks for four minutes. Thank you very much. After carefully listening to all of you, I'm now more than convinced that there is no better place but Committee of the Regions to discuss this topic. So thank you for this discussion. I see that you are interested and that you wanted to say more. So I'm also thankful to you for the resolution which you will adopt tomorrow. Unfortunately, I cannot refer to all of your comments, but have you tried only to react to some of your interventions? But please do not hesitate to connect to my office and to my cabinet after the meeting because if there are any details, you would want to know about this initiative in general on talent boosting mechanisms in particular. My first reaction is about the map and the regions captured under this communication. What we are addressing here is the phenomenon of brain drain. This means that we have pre-selected a timeframe, window and set specific criteria to capture these regions, to capture the phenomenon of brain drain. So departure of young people. We are not looking into population density as such at this moment. So northern sparsely populated areas, for example, will not be there or some islands like our Greek friends says because this density is determined by geography and also because sometimes the brain drain has happened a long time ago. So we are capturing here the recent flows and looking into the ways of rebranding regions and making them interesting and attractive on the EU geographical map. My second observation would be about resources, concretely funding. The talent booster mechanism heavily relies on cohesion funding and on cohesion programs. The pilots will be done with so-called fresh money from the regions because it will not be using the money from member states pre-reserved envelopes but from commissions own technical assistance. This is very important to know. But additionally, we will use the momentum of the, as I already said in my introduction, we will use the momentum of the mid-term review of the cohesion policy programs scheduled for 2025 and steered by European semester in 2024 because it will be an opportunity for the regions concerned to adapt their programs to meet demographic challenges. One element I want to clarify to conclude with is the platform we are building under the booster mechanism. It is under construction and it will be ready before summer. Its importance is critical, not only because it will be the place to exchange best practice and experience but mainly because it will be the place where we will publish all the calls for the pilots and the initiatives. So keep an eye on it and please as EU regions be ambassadors of that platform to spread the word about boosting talents. Last but not least, we should make sure that demographic change is factored into our reflections when we design our policies and our budgets because if we want our initiatives to be successful we cannot do it without taking into account demographic change which uniquely combines the territorial empowerment and the building of human capital and as such becomes a warranty for our regions to capitalize on the green and digital transitions and not to become victims of it. This is very important. And to conclude, you know that I'm holding first ever position of commissioner or vice president on demography in this commission. So it has never been in the history of this commission that we had portfolio on demography. But we did a lot, but I think it's not enough. So to do this strategically, we need to mobilize all relevant actors and layers of governance, local, regional, national and European. And in doing so, it has become clear that we need genuine demographic capacity to be developed at the European level. When I say capacity, as I already said, I mean a structure at European level or a body at European level together and assess data and expertise in order to provide guidance on the appropriate solution. It doesn't mean that we are not doing much, but it's not enough according to our opinion. So we will be striving and trying to establish a structure at European level to deal with all these problems. I hope you will have your support. Thank you for this exchange and looking forward on the working on the implementation of this communication together with all of you and hand in hand with our region. Thank you very much and all the best. Thank you, Madam Vice President. We're the ones who thank you for your time and your presentation. Thank you.


A key finding is that the global hunger measured with the prevalence of an enrichment, what we call POU, remained relatively unchanged from 2021 to 2022, but is still far above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, affecting around 9.2% of the world population in 2022, compared with 7.9% in 2019. This means that 122 million more people face hunger in 2022 than in 2019 before the pandemic. It is projected that almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030. This is about 119 million more than in the scenario in which neither the pandemic, nor the war in Ukraine had occurred, and around 23 million more than if 2022 events have not happened. This points to a tremendous setback provoked by the pandemic as well as the immense change of achieving the SDG target to eradicate hunger. Hunger has stalled and even declined in some countries in Asia and Latin America in 2022. These are good news, and this seems to have benefited relatively more from the economic rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not observed for western Asia, the Caribbean and all subregions of Africa. Those are bad news. Just as the global economic conditions appear to be more favorable for 2022 and the prospects of the reduction in hunger and food insecurity towards pandemic levels seem possible, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine sent another chock through the global economy exacerbating the prices of food. As a result, the recovery observed in 2021 slowed further in 2022. If there was no COVID-19 and there was no war in Ukraine, chronic undernourishment would have been declining. Now what has happened? Global trends in the hunger reflected the combination of two factors interplaying in opposite directions at the household level. First, prices have been affected and it had affected hunger numbers. As noted, global food commodity prices were rising steadily before the war, but the war exacerbated the situation, creating a new surge in food prices. Given the resulting rising food import costs because of the increasing prices, countries that are highly dependent on food imports have been particularly affected. Increasing food prices and general inflation has also affected the poorest segments of the population who spend a larger share of their income on food. The second factor, which goes in the opposite direction, is the income and the income effect of the economic recovery in 2022, which likely contributed to an increase in household disposable income and improved access to food, particularly for the poorest households that have suffered heavy income loss during the pandemic, has helped this situation. Therefore, the stalled situation in global hunger observed for 2022 is the result of the interaction of these two factors, the increase in prices and the recovery of incomes. But certainly in regions who hunger declined like in Asia and Latin America, the income effect has prevailed. In other regions where hunger is still on the rise, both the lack of income recovery and rising prices have prevailed in combination. Urbanization is a mega trend. It's one of the key drivers that we are observing in the long term. That cannot be left unnoticed, and if we are to improve food security and nutrition for the old, we need to take into account this trend. Increasing urbanization, with almost 7 in 10 people projected to live in cities by 2050, is driving changes in the agri-food systems that we cannot understand if we continue to use the traditional urban and rural divide. These changes in the agri-food systems represent both challenges and opportunities to ensure everyone has access to affordable healthy diets. The challenges include a greater availability of cheaper, convenience, pre-prepare, fast foods, often energy-dense and high in fats, sugars, and salt that can contribute to malnutrition, insufficient availability of vegetables, and fruits to meet the daily requirements of healthy diets for everyone. Another problem is the exclusion of small farmers from former value chains and loss of lands and natural capital due to urban expansion. Urbanization also presents opportunities, as it is a result in longer, more formal and complex food value chains that expand income-generating activities in no-farm employment, especially for women and youth, and increase the variety of nutritious foods. Moreover, farmers often gain better access to agricultural inputs and services as urban areas grow closer to rural areas. First, we need to integrate humanitarian development and peace-building policies where there is conflict. Here, peace-building efforts must be linked to livelihood support, nutrition-sensitive social protection, and programs for development of resilient and efficient production and supply chains. Community-based approaches should be a key aspect of post-conflict policies. Second, we need to cope with the risk of climate change. We need to scale up climate resilience across the agri-food systems by reducing climate-related risks and adapting to climate change, relying on climate risk monitoring and early warning systems, and improving access and management of natural productive assets. Third, we need to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable to economic adversities, which requires strengthening the agri-food system productivity and market linkages along the food supply chain, curbing crises in food prices, and excessive price volatility, boosting job creation and expanding social protection schemes. None of these transformation pathways will work, of course, if poverty and structural inequalities were not tackled, which require empowering vulnerable and marginalized populations, reducing gender inequalities by supporting women's economic activities, and ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources.


In this topic, we are going to discuss a very interesting aspect of culture and human resource management. We are going to talk about the concept of human resource management in different cultures and how the concept of human resource management has been affected by various different cultures and what is the history of that. We usually talk about what is the influence of culture in human resource practices. But we have not generally seen in literature that how human resource management has evolved from your culture and what its cultural meaning is. So that is what we are going to explore in this topic. So human resource management very much interestingly is also a social construct. We call it human resource management socially. We call it human resource management by the way people are managed, their policies and procedures. We call it human resource management. But this is basically a social construct. It is not a tangible construct. One organization manages its procedures and policies in a completely different way. It is also called human resource management. So it is very much interesting. It is not a concrete concept. It is a social construct. And it is not totally independent from the cultural values of the people who invented it. So obviously concepts they are defined, conceptualized and coined by people. We define the concepts ourselves. We explore them ourselves. So the people who define a particular concept, invent that term, what are their cultural backgrounds and what are their cultural values and importance. That also needs to be seen that their cultural values, they have defined human resource management in this particular way. Does everybody else take human resource management in the same way? That is something that we need to look at. Human resource management as you know that it came into being in the United States. It came into being from the literature and management practices of the United States. And it came from their business system and as a response to the foreign competition. Human resource management used to be called personnel management. And personnel management that was basically considered by calculating the pace and compensation of the personnel which was working in the organization. And it was not considered to be the management of a resource. It was considered to be management of a cost which was the personnel cost. But then the change in paradigm shift took place in America regarding managing this aspect of the organization. And from cost to resource it was considered to be a resource and called human resource. And that was how human resource management that came into being. And therefore the concept of human resource management as it is written in the literature and as it is written in the books. It is something which bears all the hallmarks of the American managerial priorities. It is opposed to basically opposed to trade unions and collective bargaining. The concept of human resource management was introduced because the American organizations they were getting increasingly affected and influenced by their trade unions. By the collective bargaining. Employees used to strike together. Trade unions used to pressurize management to give us our rights. And that was a response to this particular influence and effect of trade unions that human resource management was evolved. We will satisfy our employees from the inside of the organization. And they will be given a due share. They will be satisfied that they will not go to the site of trade union and collective bargaining. So this was the basic concept of evolving and coining human resource management. So in the American model of human resource management it would allow decentralization and human employee empowerment and participation. And that would eliminate the need to act as the employees agents in collective bargaining. So that is why you see that in the human resource literature there is a lot of importance that is given to employee empowerment, participative leadership styles. A lot of importance is given to decentralization, to de-layering of the organization, to flatter organizational structures. That is so that the employees they feel that they are participating in the organizational decision making and they don't have to go towards the trade unions and collective bargaining. That is how the concept of human resource management it was invented in the Americas. From the Americas the concept of human resource management then it traveled to Europe and in other father countries then it was also introduced in other countries. But it shows that as human resource management is considered in the Americas and the basic principles of human resource management which are considered the important values, they have not really taken roots in the rest of the world. They have not really taken roots in Europe and what to talk of other countries. They are particularly not adopted by developing countries which have a widely diverse political system, social structures and business priorities and preferences. So the American model of human resource management that actually, for example, if you look at the selection aspect of recruitment, you can see that they are basically defined by the job specifications and merit policy and all that. But if you look at the cultural developing countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, even China was a developing country a few years ago and the emerging economies of the Far East, they had a culture of personal context, they had a culture of social status, they had a culture of personal relationship in conducting human resources. They have not always been done on the basis of the defined set human resource principles or policies. There are many references of personal context and they are concerned about obliging other people. For example, in Indonesia, this is a culture that people who are at higher places, they are requested and obliged to accommodate their family members and it is something which is considered as a cultural norm. Similarly in Pakistan, it is considered as a cultural norm that people try to adjust their friends and colleagues and close relationships in places where they are. And it is considered to be a social norm although when we are writing about it, when we are talking in literature about it, we do not acknowledge it but it is a cultural norm. So it has not been particularly adopted in the developing countries. A study was conducted on various different cities, countries of Europe to understand how human resource management was taken in those particular countries and it was found that there was little convergence of how human resource management was adopted by various different countries because their national culture, it affected how they managed their human resources. For example, in Spain, there was little discussion of human resource management because Spain was going through a financial and economic crisis and there were problems of redundancies and unemployment. So when there is unemployment, where will the bargaining power come from? The jobs they will get, the jobs they will get, they will do their job descriptions. They really cannot go for the human resource practices of satisfying the employee for this particular project. Then it was found that Sweden's strong collectivist culture, it counters the development of a more individualistic orientation to employment relations. Again, Sweden, that is also a country where collectivist culture is their people. They help each other, they support each other, they back each other. So in an individualistic environment where only you are concerned with your own compensation and reward and promotions, that is a different thing. But in a collectivistic culture, you need to take care of people who are related to you. So because of that, you cannot actually implement that individualistic culture and that is why human resource management in Sweden, it counters the basic values of HRM. Then in another country, the Dutch feminine culture, it encourages the antipathy of Dutch employees to the hard HRM. So in the Dutch culture, because it is a feminist culture, it is a feminine culture, not a feminist culture, that is a totally different thing. It is a feminine culture which values love, nurturing, helping, supporting each other. So they don't look at the hard side of the human resource management, they do things in a congenial environment, in an amicable environment, in doing things they consider giving and nurturing others is more important. Then in Germany, it was found that institutional factors in Germany of the strong role of the unions and the formal consultative structures, they also attenuate the rise of the managerial prerogative. So in Germany, there are already structures which provide grievance redressal and that is why the management prerogative that is kind of sidelined. Then in France, the power of the patronaut hinders the decentralization. The culture of France, it is a patronistic culture in which a lot of respect is given to the person who is the boss, who is in the upper echelons of the organization and therefore decentralization cannot be in such a situation where you give a lot of respect to the boss, how to allocate the decision making lower levels. Even in UK, that is one of the most quick followers of the American culture and American values, even over there many companies they have simply named their personnel department as the human resource management department and you do not see an actual philosophical shift in the way they manage their human resources. So from this discussion, we see that it is not really a universal fact that human resource management has to be done on a particular set of rules, values and particular preferences. There needs to be a fit between what is imported from abroad and the local environment for the adoption of human resource management to be complete and successful. So there comes the importance of national culture that according to the culture of a country, human resource management concept will also be shaped. People will not look at human resource management as you read it in human resource management books imported from the America. Human resource management is a social construct which is going to be affected by the national culture and values and therefore there has to be a fit. So when we are talking about international human resource management, international human resource managers, they really need to make sure that the fit is established between the local culture and the imported values. And that can be implemented by recontextualization of the human resource policies. That is not possible without redefining and recontextualizing the human resource management concept. So that is basically the discussion about how human resource management can become a totally different context when the national culture is different from the other one.


Let us see how we can solve the equation 2 to the x equals negative x plus 11. This is a nice problem where students can break it down into a system of equations, one of which is exponential and the other one which is linear. So let the left hand side of the equation become y equals 2 to the x and the right hand side of the equation let it be y equals negative x plus 11. We can do this now on a graph. We will use a graphing method to solve this because at this stage students probably have not been exposed to solving exponential equations so they do not know how to work with logarithms and so on. So let us use this graphing approach y equals 2 to the x and let the second equation be y equals negative x plus 11. Now let us see how nice. So we see that the functions intersect and we can touch the point where they intersect and we can see that that is the point 3 eighths, that is the point of intersection. When we go back to the system of equations we can verify that solution. The solution was the point 3 eighth and x equals 3 y equals 8. Let us see if that is indeed the case. What is the value of y when x is 3? Well that is indeed 8, 8 is equal to 8. What about here? What is the value of y when x is equal to negative 3? Well we can readily see that also 8 is equal to 8. So you can see that the solution is indeed x equals 3, x is equal to 3 and the function assumes the value of 8.


So in the past, I've been just a little bit critical of day trading, just a little bit though. In some videos I said that it's not a great way to invest your money, it's extremely risky and you probably shouldn't do it. But I realized the truth is I've never actually tried day trading and you know the old saying, don't knock it until you try it. And there also seems to be an endless stream of thumbnails that the YouTube algorithm has been recommending to me of people sitting in front of their computers smiling telling me they can easily teach me how to day trade. So I decided that I'm gonna try to day trade for a week with $1,000 as a complete beginner and document my progress. And I'm going into this with an open mind, I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys, I'm gonna do my best and see what happens. And then along the way I'm gonna teach you what I've learned and hopefully we can both learn something from this. And for those that don't know, day trading is basically where you buy and sell stocks throughout the day as they fluctuate. Day traders then sell their stocks by the end of the day and they make sure that they only have cash in their account so they don't have any stock positions or stock holdings within their account at the end of the day. And we're gonna start right now as soon as you gently tap that like button. All right, so it's day one and obviously I have no idea how to day trade so like any normal person, I'm gonna go ahead and ask my phone. Okay, Google, how do I day trade? Put me down you. Okay, fine, I guess I'll try YouTube then. Okay, so I've done enough research to know that I can day trade on my Weeble account, I'm a big fan of Weeble, I use them all the time and it's great to know that I can day trade on them so I'm gonna go ahead and make sure that I have enough money in my account. Okay, so I did open a second Weeble account, the first one I already have other stuff going on there so I opened a second Weeble account, opened it up and they still gave me a free stock. So my account value right now is about $1,031.41 and I will just like show you the phone there, hopefully you can see that. And I know it's probably a huge new move to use an app like Weeble for day trading, it's probably not the best one for that. But guess what, I am a new, this is the first time I've ever done this so I'm gonna use what's available to me. So now I'm gonna look at different resources online to figure out the basics. So I just wanna look at this as a complete beginner and learn the basics like the lingo that they use and things like that. I'm gonna look at different resources to get a feel at what a good place to start is and I have a feeling I'm probably gonna start watching a bunch of YouTube videos. The activity of buying and selling the same financial asset. Okay, so a lot of these YouTube videos seem to be pretty intimidating for a beginner but some of them were a little bit helpful I guess. So I did some research and I learned that Investopedia is a great resource to learn the basics and the lingo. So for instance, if you come across a popular word like scalping that means selling something immediately after the trade becomes profitable. Well, so now that I have some of the terminology down I think that I'm ready to start trading. And it's gone. Just kidding, that would not be very smart. I definitely need to use what's known as a stock market simulator which is where I can trade with fake money. That way I can practice trading without risking losing any real money. And luckily again, Investopedia came in clutch. Shout out to them for being a great resource. They actually do have a day trading simulator. Okay, so this simulator is great, don't get me wrong and it has taught me a few important things like knowing the difference between a market order, a limit order and a stop order. A limit order is going to buy or sell a stock at a specific price in a set time period and a stop order will buy or sell a stock at a limit price only after a specific price is reached. But there's one huge problem with the Investopedia simulator. Where are the red and green lines? So these things are called candlesticks and unfortunately this simulator doesn't have any. And are you really day trading if you're not sitting in front of a black screen with green and red lines on it? Probably not. Okay. So I found another day trading simulator. This one is supposed to be a lot better. It's on the platform Think or Swim by TD Ameritrade. This seems to be one of the best, if not the best day trading platforms and they do have a free simulator that has great reviews. So I'm going to check it out. Okay, so I did find candlesticks, right? I'm using the Think or Swim platform right now. This is honestly pretty overwhelming and it's going to take me a little while to learn how to use it. So I think I'm sort of ready to start trading. I know it's a lot, but I think I can at least try to do some trades, just some really basic trades tomorrow just to get comfortable with it. And I know that I'm going to have to wake up super early because the market's open really early. So I will see you guys tomorrow. All right guys, it is the next morning. The bell just went off about eight minutes ago. It's 6.38 a.m. in the morning here on the West Coast and I am going to make my first trade. All right, so after doing tons of research and coming up with a master plan, I've decided that this video wouldn't be complete if my first trade wasn't me just yoloing all of my money into Tesla. So that's exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to go ahead and buy some shares of Tesla. Now if you check out the Webull app, this app is actually fantastic, surprisingly for day trading.  You can mess around, look at like the candlestick chart sort of. And if you look at this histogram, this is something I was looking up. Apparently when it goes into the red, you're supposed to buy, right? So it's in the red at this point. It was in the green a few days ago and now it's in the red. So I'm going to go ahead and place a trade on Tesla. All right, so my first ever trade of Tesla was successful. I couldn't capture it on camera because I had to exit the position but basically I bought one share of Tesla for $772.27 and I sold it for $796.75. And that is a profit of about $3.50. Just kidding, it's around $25 a little bit below $25 but that's not bad for like five to 10 minutes of work, something like that.  I was pulling out my phone every five minutes looking at it, but I do have to admit it was also a lot of fun. So we're going to go ahead, go in and make our second trade now. So when it comes to day trading, you want to target stocks that have like tight spreads, lots of different trades and heavy price movement. Now one thing I noticed here is the stock for Facebook does seem to be a little bit below and this is one of those stocks that usually are going to be pretty good for day trading. So I'm going to have to monitor this one really closely but it has been kind of going down and staying stable here for the last few days. So I do have a feeling that it's going to shoot up. So I'm going to go ahead and buy a few shares of Facebook. Okay, perfect. So it went through here on Weebol pretty much immediately. I bought three shares of Facebook at $267.09.  All right guys, so quick update here. I bought a few shares of Facebook at about $267 and it looked like I was going to lose money there for a little bit. And all of a sudden it shot up to $269 and so I decided to sell on the spot. So I only earned around $10 or so here but the big thing is that I didn't lose money. This is what's known as scalping where you just take profits as soon as you possibly can. So a few days ago my account was at $1,031 and now it's at 1,063 and I'm feeling really big brain here after making 30 bucks so I think I'm going to do something that's a little more risky. Now unfortunately I can't do shorts on Weebol because there's only $1,000 in my account and you have to apply for that and get a margin account with at least $2,000 but what you can do which is basically the same thing is you can buy what's known as inverse ETFs. And in case you didn't know, shorting is basically where you bet against a stock. So you think that a stock is overvalued and it's going to go down pretty soon and you place a bet that it's going to go down. If you're right, let's say a stock is $1,000 and it goes down to 500 and you short it at 1,000 then you can pocket the difference which would be $500. Now one inverse ETF that I found is SPXS and that's basically an inverse ETF that is leveraged times three. Three times leverage basically means that if it goes up just a little bit it's actually going to be three times as much but the same applies to if it goes down. In other words, you're going to be putting in 1x but you're sort of borrowing 3x. So it's a little bit more risky but if things go well then the rewards will be better as well. So I'm going to go ahead and put about half of my account into this. I'm going to buy around $540 worth so I'm going to put that in right now. All right, perfect. So it looks like it went through pretty much instantly and we'll see what happens. Whew, okay. I don't even know what to say here. I skipped a few days, I got a little bit busy but what happened is it's hard to even explain. I'm honestly still in shock. Okay, so the last trade I made was I bought the basically the S&P 500 three times leverage shares ETF. I bought it at $33.79 per share and it immediately crashed of course and then I kind of waited a little bit and then basically a little bit later on in the day it went back up and I decided to take, you know, just scalp it basically, take what I could get and I sold it at $33.89. And it's a good thing that I did because it sort of just kept on sliding down or it was sort of equal so it wasn't really doing much. Then I went into a deep think. I decided to pause like a grandmaster chess player, do a bunch of research and I started looking at the subreddit r slash wall street bets and all this stuff about GameStop was going on and of course I made a video about that the whole situation with GameStop and Robinhood but what I noticed is people thought that GameStop stock was gonna go up again and so what I decided to do after thinking about it for a long time was pull another 9,000 IQ move and just YOLO all of my money into GameStop stock. I bought 22 shares of stock at about $44.75. Now I was planning on selling it just a little bit later in the day but then I got a little busy and I decided to pull another 9,000 IQ move and not sell it and so this is technically kind of like swing trading because I didn't sell it in the same day. But the next day, GameStop stock went up about double and it is now worth $83.10 as I am filming this. My net account value is now about $1,871 and it's literally changing every single second so I have to snap pictures of this as I'm talking so I pretty much almost doubled my money at this point. Now this is technically a day trading challenge so I should probably sell at this point but this is GameStop stock let's be honest here I gotta hold on with those diamond hands. We were talking about paper hands here, okay? So we're gonna pivot into swing trading and I might even just hold it long term and while we were speaking, this literally just went up and it's almost a $2,000 net value. In fact, it might hit $2,000 right now. If it hits 2,000, I'm gonna go ahead and screen cap it. Yep, it just hit it, boom. Okay, I'll put that in the video, it just hit $2,000 as we were talking. So the results of this challenge are that I pretty much doubled my money and now it just hit 2,600 by the way. Okay, I gotta put the phone away while I'm making this video because I'm just gonna keep looking at it over and over again. So I obviously over doubled my money, okay? So normal investing, normal long term investing, it would take about 10 years or so to double your money if you got like a 7% return. So it's incredible that I was able to double my money in just a few days. Now to be fair, I do have to go over the success statistics of day trading because they aren't very good. I've talked about this before on my channel. Coffeezilla made a great video about your statistics when it comes to success in day trading, but basically only about 1% or so of day traders are going to be able to make a full-time income. The best percentage that I found was 10% of day traders are successful and that was like the absolute best one that I found. And the truth is, day trading is basically like a zero sum game. So if you think about it in order for one person to win, another person has to lose. And you're not necessarily contributing all that much to society, so if you offer a service or you sell some kind of product, you're basically solving a problem for somebody and so both of you end up winning. Instead of three plus three equals six, it's more like three times three equals nine. It's not a zero sum game because there's synergy there. But when it comes to day trading, it's basically a zero sum game where three plus three equals six, and one person is gonna get to keep most of that. So one person gets the lion's share and the other person ends up losing some of it. But I have changed my mind a little bit doing this challenge as well as my day trading of Bitcoin challenge. The reason is for one, this is a ton of fun. I didn't realize how much fun day trading is. It's super fun just having an idea in your head.  It's almost like playing poker or gambling or something along those lines. As long as you're investing with money that you're willing to lose and you absolutely know that you full well could lose, I don't see any harm in it. And then the second thing is, I do think there are some strategies that you can't necessarily program a robot to do. Now, most of these strategies, to be honest with you, are not going to be ones you're gonna find on YouTube or anything like that. Strategies like scalping or divergence, for instance, those are things that you could very easily program into, you know, Python. And a computer program, a robot, isn't gonna have some of the emotions that a human has. It's just gonna stick with the exact script that it's supposed to stick with. However, things like figuring out how trends are going to affect stocks, figuring out how, you know, people doing things, things that are happening in the world, different trends that are happening all over and how this is gonna have an effect on the stock market. That's something I don't think you could necessarily ever program into a robot.  So I do think for a very specific type of person, someone who's skilled in a very specific way and somebody who has a lot of self-control, day trading can be a viable option. I don't think I'm the right person for that though, to be honest with you. I think there's a lot of options out there that are better for me. And if you're just talking like objectively the best opportunity out there, I don't think it's gonna be day trading. And by that I mean for the average person there are better opportunities out there to make money online than day trading. But I also don't think that all the people that are teaching day trading online are scammers like some people out there do. This has opened my eyes and I'm a little bit more open-minded to day trading than I was before. However, I do think your chances of success are going to be very low if you try it. But with that being said, your chances of success are gonna be very low pretty much no matter what type of entrepreneurial endeavor you do, whether it's starting a YouTube channel, day trading, starting any type of business. And I think it all just comes down to fit. So there's a certain type of person that is gonna do really well when it comes to day trading. And it also comes down to how much you enjoy it. But with that being said, I think this video is getting pretty long. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut it right there. Check out my other videos right here. If you haven't already, go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera. And I will see all of you next time.


As a small business, why would I even want to follow a protest? I lost, I lost fair and square, right? Yeah, I think there's, so at a base level, right? Protest is just a written objection, right? You're protesting something. So the question is then, what are you challenging? Okay. Well, there's really two buckets, right? You're challenging the terms of a solicitation. So ambiguous terms, internally inconsistent terms, an unreasonable evaluation method. Okay. You know, there was a recent protest where the pre-award protest that was sustained because they were challenging the evaluation of a joint venture and specifically the requirement that the protege of a mentor protege joint venture was required to have the same level of experience as other offers and GAO sustained that protest and say, Hey, no, the new regulation that came out in November says you can't do that, right? And so that was a great protest because now as a protege of a mentor protege team, you're going to have a new solicitation. They're going to revise and amend the solicitation. Hey, we're not going to allow the protege to meet that same experience requirement because that's what SBA's new regulation says. So that's a great use of the pre-award protest, right?