Suchergebnisse

Youth unemployment remains a significant problem in most EU countries. In this paper we explore the dynamics of this problem by comparing young people's transitions from unemployment to employment in nine member states. Using the first two waves of the European Community Household Panel, we follow the progress of 14,600 young Europeans over a two-year period. We examine how the employment prospects of young unemployed people are affected by their country of residence and by their personal characteristics such as age, gender, parenthood and educational attainment as well as by previous work experience and unemployment duration. We attempt to unpack the crossnational differences in the underlying transition rate by substituting country names with macro/institutional level variables such as youth long-term unemployment rates, active labour market policy expenditure, employment regulation regimes and benefit provisions for unemployed young people.

The international literature on active labour market programmes has generated inconsistent and confusing, but generally pessimistic, conclusions regarding their impact on the employment prospects of participants. This paper argues that much of this confusion is due to a general lack of attention to qualitative differences between programmes. The paper develops a typology of active labour market programmes, differentiating between training and employment measures on the basis of their orientation to the labour market and argues that programmes with a strong orientation to the market are more likely to improve the job prospects of participants than those characterised by weak market linkages. That hypothesis is tested using the results of a survey of young participants in labour market programmes in Ireland. The analysis shows that programmes with strong linkages to the labour market both enhance the employment prospects of their participants and increase their earnings, even when we take account of relevant individual characteristics such as education and previous labour market experience.

The international literature on active labour market programmes has generated inconsistent and confusing, but generally pessimistic, conclusions regarding their impact on the employment prospects of participants. This paper argues that much of this confusion is due to a general lack of attention to qualitative differences between programmes. The paper develops a typology of active labour market programmes, differentiating between training and employment measures on the basis of their orientation to the labour market and argues that programmes with a strong orientation to the market are more likely to improve the job prospects of participants than those characterised by weak market linkages. That hypothesis is tested using the results of a survey of young participants in labour market programmes in Ireland. The analysis shows that programmes with strong linkages to the labour market both enhance the employment prospects of their participants and increase their earnings, even when we take account of relevant individual characteristics such as education and previous labour market experience. ; Die internationale Literatur hat bisher inkonsistente und verwirrende, aber in der Regel pessimistische Schlußfolgerungen hinsichtlich der Beschäftigungswirkung für Teilnehmer in arbeitsmarktpolitischen Maßnahmen gezogen. In diesem Beitrag wird argumentiert, daß ein Großteil dieser Konfusion darauf zurückzuführen ist, daß den qualitativen Differenzen von Maßnahmen zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt wurde. Es wird daher eine Typologie aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik entwickelt, bei der die Weiterbildungs- und Beschäftigungsmaßnahmen nach ihren Marktbezügen unterschieden werden. Maßnahmen, die sich an den Bedürfnissen des Marktes orientieren, verbessern die Beschäftigungsperspektiven der Teilnehmer deutlich mehr als Maßnahmen mit schwacher Marktorientierung. Diese These wird - unter Verwendung von Kontrollgruppen - durch eine ökonometrische Analyse von jungen Teilnehmern in Arbeitsmarktmaßnahmen in Irland getestet und bestätigt: Maßnahmen mit starker Marktorientierung erhöhen sowohl die Beschäftigungschancen als auch die Löhne der Teilnehmer, selbst wenn man die relevanten individuellen Merkmale wie Bildung und Arbeitsmarkterfahrung in Betracht zieht.

Previous research shows that immigrants, in common with other groups that suffer disadvantage in the labour market, are more vulnerable during recession. However, little research has focused on the impact of the Great Recession on work-related discrimination. We examine the extent to which discrimination varies across different national-ethnic groups in Ireland, and whether discrimination increased between 2004, during an economic boom, and 2010, in the midst of a severe recession. Our analysis draws on two large-scale nationally representative surveys on the experience of labour market discrimination. We find that overall non-Irish nationals do experience higher rates of work-based discrimination and that there is substantial variation in discrimination across national-ethnic groups. However we find no evidence to suggest that self-reported discrimination increased during the recession.

In the extensive literature on the employment impact of public-sponsored training programmes for the unemployed, insufficient attention has been paid to the differential impact of different types of programmes and training duration. This paper uses a unique dataset, which tracks the labour market position of a cohort of unemployment benefit claimants for almost two years, to evaluate the impact of a range of government-sponsored training courses in Ireland. Overall, we found that those who participated in training were less likely to be unemployed at the end of the two-year study period. However, the average effect of training varied by the type and duration of training received. In general, we found strong positive effects for job-search skills training and medium-to high-level skills courses, a more modest positive effect for general vocational skills programmes (which are not strongly linked to demand in the labour market) and less consistent effects with respect to low-level skills training. We also found that training episodes with lower duration had a more positive impact, with the exception of high-level skills training programmes where longer training durations appear more effective. The results suggest that, in the Irish context, there are potentially substantial benefits to re-orientating unemployment training provision away from standard classroom vocational training towards the medium to highlevel skill end of the market and demonstrate that, in most cases, training durations can be reduced without lowering the effectiveness of the interventions.

This paper uses a high quality longitudinal dataset to assess the impact of an active labour market intervention consisting of referral for interview plus Job Search Assistance (JSA) with the public employment service in Ireland during a period when both job search monitoring and sanctions were virtually non-existent. The results indicate that, relative to a control group with no intervention, unemployed individuals that were exposed to the interview letter and participated in JSA were 16 per cent less likely to have exited to employment prior to 12 months. The negative effects of the intervention approximately doubled when those that received a referral letter but did not attend a JSA interview were removed from the data. The results held when tested against the underlying assumptions of the model, and the influences of both sample selection and unobserved heterogeneity bias. The negative treatment impact is attributed to individuals lowering their job search intensity on learning, through the JSA activation interview, of the lax nature of the activation process. The research, which is unusual in the international literature in allowing the assessment of the impact of job search assistance in the virtual absence of monitoring and sanctions, highlights the need for effective monitoring and sanctions as integral components of labour market activation programmes.

This paper produced a rigorous analysis of the human resource interventions which formed an important part of the EU Community Support Framework implemented in Ireland in the period 1994 to 1999. The study investigates the impact of both initial education and of continuing education, training and temporary employment programmes. The study utilises an approach based on comparison groups garnered from existing ESRI databases to estimate the net impact of the interventions rather than relying simply on cruder measures such as gross placement rates. Estimates are given of the returns to fourteen schemes included in the Support Framework in terms of income and employment prospects. The results suggest that programmes with strong market linkages are much more effective than those with a more general remit. On this basis, recommendations are made for a strategic re-orientation of labour market policies for the unemployed.

"In international commentary and debate on the effects of the Great Recession and austerity, Ireland has been hailed as the poster child for economic recovery and regeneration out of deep economic and fiscal contraction. While the genesis of Ireland's financial, economic and fiscal crisis has been covered in the literature, no systematic analysis has yet been devoted to the period of austerity, to the impact of austerity on institutions and people, or to the roots of economic recovery. In this book a group of Ireland's leading social scientists present a multi-disciplinary analysis of recession and austerity and their effects on economic, business, political and social life. Individual chapters discuss the fiscal and economic policies implemented, the role of international, and, in particular, of EU institutions, and the effects on businesses, consumption, work, the labour market, migration, political and financial institutions, social inequality and cohesion, housing and cultural expression. The book shows that Ireland cannot be viewed uncritically as a poster child for austerity.0While fiscal contraction provided a basis for stabilizing the perilous finances of the State, economic recovery was due in the main to the long-established structure of Irish economic and business activity, to the importance of foreign direct investment and the dynamic export sector, and to recovery in the international economy. The restructuring and recovery of the financial system was aided by favourable international developments, including historically low interest rates and quantitative easing. Migration flows, nominal wage stability, the protection of social transfer payments and the involvement of trade unions in severe public sector retrenchment - long-established features of Irish political economy - were of critical importance in the maintenance of social cohesion"--Back cover