  Purpose of the paper: This paper explores size and potential of green
employment for Circular Economy (CE) in SMEs in the European Union and
investigates the role of green jobs and skills for the implementation of CE
practices. Design/methodology/approach: The data are collected in a
Eurobarometer survey, and refer to resource efficiency, green markets, and CE
practices. Lack of environmental expertise is one of the factors that might be
perceived as an obstacle when trying to implement resource efficiency actions.
Previous research shows that, although resource efficiency practices are
adopted by firms in all European countries, there are differences both within
and between countries. The analysis of the determinants of green behavior by
European SMEs is completed by a study of heterogeneity across firms and within
countries with a multilevel latent class model, a hierarchical clustering
method. Findings: A general important evidence is that having no workers
dedicated to green jobs is strongly correlated to the probability of adopting
resource efficiency practices, while perceiving the need of extra environmental
skills has a positive effect on the intention to implement actions in the
future. Other characteristics of the firms play a significant impact on
resource efficiency: in general, older and bigger firms, with larger yearly
turnover, are more prone to implement actions. The type of chosen action varies
across activity sectors. What is original/value of paper: In the reference
literature, the relationship between green jobs, environmental skills, workers
employed in CE practices, and resource efficiency has received limited
attention so far.
