Possibilities And Limits Of An Active Labour Market Policy By Empolyment Offices

This book argues that active labour market policies are necessary to improve the position of the unemployed but have so far performed relatively poorly. The contributing authors seek ways to improve active labour market policy and consider three means of doing so: improving the quality by better targeting and by better-designed measures, more efficient implementation and delivery, and better performance by benchmarking the various implementation agencies involved.

Since the mid 1990s, the focus of European employment and social policy has shifted from protection to promotion. This book provides a timely analysis of this new form of governance, and the new forms of policy delivery and audit which accompany it. The limitations of the current approach became particularly apparent during the financial crisis of 2008, and it has now reached a turning point. The book offers a new coherent European reform agenda that views easing transitions in employment and promoting the development of individual and collective capabilities as cornerstones. The contributing authors focus on vocational training, life course policies, reflexive labour law and social insurance, from theoretical, empirical and practical perspectives. Transforming European Employment Policy will be of great benefit to policymakers as well as those researching or studying European law, labour law, industrial relations, political science, social policy or international business.

This book examines the effectiveness of active labour market policies and their contribution to the prevention of social exclusion. The evaluation studies reported in this volume focus on two aspects of active labour market policies that have been relatively neglected in previous research and merit special attention. The first part of the book deals with aggregate impact analysis. Using examples from France, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain, the contributors attempt to estimate the impact of active labour market policies on the transition from unemployment to employment using aggregate data at the regional level. Although quantitative in nature, these contributions take into account qualitative aspects such as the socio-economic context of the countries concerned and the structure of active labour market policies. The book then focuses on implementation issues and includes implementation studies carried out in Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden. The qualitative element plays a far more important role in these contributions which rely on case studies and surveys in addition to statistical data.

The objectives of this book are: to review and develop a framework of key analytical concepts in the field of labour market segmentation; to develop and test these concepts against available data; to indicate weaknesses in the data in the light of the analysis; to offer a critique of manpower policies in some European countries in the light of the foregoing analysis; and to indicate areas of further research. The authors hope that this survey of the literature and the comments that accompany it will prove useful to policy makers and students alike. The authors woulp like to acknowledge the role of the Directorate General for Social Affairs of the European Community, Brussels, in initiating and supporting the production of this volume of criticism and discussion. We have especially appreciated the role of David White, on whose advice we came to rely in directing our critique upon the application of segmental theory to matters of labour market policy. Others whose help and advice we have relied on are John Morley, also of the European Community, Peta Small, who typed the several drafts, and our respective wives and families whose encouragement and discreet silences enabled us to get past the nth draft.