Zastosowanie metody Warda do oceny poziomu bezrobocia w ujęciu przestrzennym

One of the largest economic and social problems of modern world is phenomenon of unemployment. It appeared together with development of free market economy and is integrally bounded with technological progress, consequently which is to replace work of human hands with work of machines. In this paper is undertaken an effort to characterise population of unemployed in powiats of the Małopolskie voivodeship in spatial sense. To separate concentrations of objects it was used agglomeration method of grouping – Ward’s method. Function of criterion of joining of units into groups is sum of squares of distances of particular units from groups’ centres of gravity, of which they belong to. Unemployment rate in powiats of the Małopolskie voivodeship showed large spatial diversification, varying between 16,4% in dąbrowski powiat and 5,6% in bocheński powiat in year 2008. Bocheński powiat was distinguished by the highest interest of unemployed women and people with University education, against the background of remaining powiats of the Małopolskie voivodeship. Separation of group of powiats in voivodeship characterizing by similar scale and intensity of certain problems, occurring on local labour market, indicates possibility of exchanging experience, cooperation between institutions servicing labour markets and local authorities. Despite changes, which have taken place over a span of years, still most endangered with unemployment in powiats of the Małopolskie voivodeship are: women, young people (under 24 years old) and people with low education.