The Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities Initiative
Place-Based Workforce Development in Appalachia, the Lower Mississippi Delta and the Northern Border Regions of the United States
| Location | Spain (regions historically reliant on coal mining and coal-fired power plants, such as Aragón, Castilla y León, Asturias, Andalusia, Galicia and the Basque Country) |
| Initiative | Spain’s Just Transition Strategy, including the Just Transition Agreements, Job Banks and Urgent Action Plan |
| Program snapshot | Spain’s Just Transition Strategy emerged to manage the phase-out of publicly subsidized coal production and coal-fired plants, in line with national and European climate goals. Designed to mitigate the impacts of decarbonization on coal-dependent communities, the strategy promotes employment creation, up-skilling and re-skilling and sustainable growth. Overseen by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and the autonomous Instituto para la Transición Justa (“Just Transition Institute”), the strategy engages multiple partners, including Spanish regional governments, local authorities, trade unions, companies and the National Federation of Coal Mining Businesses. An Urgent Action Plan addresses immediate challenges in regions with closures of coal mines and coal and nuclear power plants. Tripartite agreements among governments, unions and companies have produced sectoral accords to guarantee compensation for lost jobs as well as new employment opportunities and vocational training, thereby maintaining local employment levels. Two Job Banks provide affected workers with advisory services, individual career counselling and priority hiring for site-restoration activities. Local business projects receive higher subsidies if they hire the Job Banks registrants. Complementary to the sectoral accords, Just Transition Agreements are place-based co-governance tools with extensive social participation. They ensure cross-government commitment and co-ordination at the national, regional and local levels, providing tailored, place-based support for economic diversification, thereby preserving employment and stabilizing rural populations. Currently, 15 agreements are in place. Funding comes from the European Commission’s Just Transition Fund, the Spanish government and the European Commission’s NextGenerationEU fund. |
| Sector focus | The focus is on coal regions, coal-fired power plants under closure and nuclear power plants without reconversion plans. |
| Time frame | The Just Transition Strategy was approved in February 2019, and the Just Transition Agreements were established in 2020. The Urgent Action Plan spans 2019-21 but remains active, continuing efforts in the 2018 Framework Agreement for a Just Transition for Coal Mining and the Sustainable Development of Mining Regions for the Period 2019-2027. Two Job Banks opened in 2019 and 2020; by 2021, their employment-improvement services were operational. As of 2023, a support plan for re-skilling and job placements was still under development. |
