ABSTRACT
Economic growth and restructuring, especially in robust urban areas and their commuting zones, have attracted labor from less-productive sectors and areas in Finland for decades (Kangasharju and Pekkala, 2004; Tervo, 2009; Lehtonen and Tykkyläinen, 2010 a). Similarly, rural areas close to the largest cities in Canada have succeeded better than other rural areas in compensating for employment losses in the primary industries, as they have benefited from commuting to the regional cores (Polèse and Shearmur, 2004; Partridge et al., 2007). At the local level, the transformation to an urban-centric knowledge economy is the most problematic in remote rural places. For resource-dependent municipalities like Lieksa local job creation is crucial as the municipality is located outside the commuting area of the nearest regional center (Halonen et al., 2015) and lagging behind due to costs related to distance (Lehtonen, 2015).
