enhancing regional RTD and innovation capacities directly linked to regional economic development objectives and combating unemployment and poverty, in particular by supporting industry or technology-specific competence centres, by promoting industrial RTD and SMEs and technology transfer, by developing technology forecasting and international benchmarking of policies to promote innovation, and by supporting inter-firm collaboration and joint RTD and innovation policies;

Unemployment due to technological progress applies to particular types of workers whose skill is made redundant because of changes in methods of production.

By the same token the skills gap of those who suffer from forms of exclusion or disadvantage needs to be addressed, bearing in mind that technological changes may exclude many citizens particularly low skilled workers, unemployed people and older people, who may not have the chance to acquire the necessary skills.

However, despite this positive assessment, the region of Andalusia still suffers from substantial shortcomings, mainly in the productive sector (deficiencies in the local and sectoral productive systems, industrial concentration in low technology sectors, etc.), human and technological capital (high unemployment rate, low innovation capacity, etc.) and regional planning (territorial disparities in facilities and infrastructure, inadequate connections to the trans-European high capacity network etc).

So far, it could be argued that the United States has met these challenges better than others have. More than anything the "new economy" is synonymous with an unprecedented uninterrupted period of sustained growth (nine years) and low employment without inflationary pressures. This is neither the time nor the place to enter into a detailed analysis of the secret of the American miracle, but what is certain is that one essential ingredient in the recipe is the capacity of American companies to compete on world markets and to constantly improve efficiency and quality while making innovations in the key sectors and adapting rapidly to technological change. This has en ...[+++]abled them to conquer new markets all over the world.

The "Skills Mismatch": Accelerating technological change and an ageing workforce with skills that need updating can lead to a situation where a need for skilled personnel and unemployment are coinciding.