Institutional and regulatory set-up of active labour market policy provision in Estonia

Author(s):  
Author(s):  
Johan Bo Davidsson

For many decades it seemed that the Swedish model was immune to change. Welfare scholars saw in Sweden a paragon of an equal society based on a generous welfare state that had withstood the pressures of globalisation. While it is true that some welfare institutions are still intact, that is no longer the case in labour market policy. This cannot be explained by fiscal austerity imposed by the EU; rather it was the economic crisis in the early 1990s that first set reforms in motion. This chapter traces labour market reforms in Sweden over the past two decades. The pattern suggested here is one in which labour market outsiders have borne the brunt of reforms. This can be seen in the manner in which labour market flexibility was introduced, the fact that many of the unemployed now stand outside the social insurance system, in the declining value of social assistance benefits and perhaps most strikingly in the radical cuts to spending on active labour market policy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 635-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Lindley ◽  
Steven Mcintosh ◽  
Jennifer Roberts ◽  
Carolyn Czoski Murray ◽  
Richard Edlin

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Steve Dawe

This article is an attempt to re-conceptualise Full Employment. The UK context is the main geographical focus. A normative route to the rehabilitation of Full Employment is offered - recast here as ‘Green Full Employment’ - utilising a variety of Green perspectives from sociology, politics and economics. This contribution to the debate about Full Employment is ‘normative’, because without ethical values we may lack a moral compass to motivate policies. Green Full Employment is presented here not simply as a potential ‘active labour market’ policy, but as a contributory facet of the on-going ‘Green Industrial Revolution.’ Inevitably, this reconceptualization raises questions about the value of many forms of contemporary work and what purpose they serve. The potential resistance of neoliberal forces to Green Full Employment is noted, before future lines of research are suggested.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOCHEN CLASEN ◽  
DANIEL CLEGG ◽  
ALEXANDER GOERNE

AbstractIn the past decade, active labour market policy (ALMP) has become a major topic in comparative social policy analysis, with scholars exploiting cross-national variation to seek to identify the determinants of policy development in this central area of the ‘new welfare state’. In this paper, we argue that better integration of this policy field into social policy scholarship requires rather more critical engagement with considerable methodological, conceptual and theoretical challenges in order to analyse these policies comparatively. Most fundamentally, rather more reflection is needed on what the substantially relevant dimensions of variation in ALMP from a social policy perspective actually are, as well as enhanced efforts to ensure that it is those that are being analysed and compared.


2005 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bruttel

In recent years, new public management has reached public employment services. This article analyses the use of training vouchers for jobseekers in Germany as a means of delivering active labour market policy. While vouchers are familiar in other fields of public services, the approach is completely novel in active labour market policy. The article contrasts the proclaimed advantages of vouchers in general (i.e. jobseeker choice and provider competition) with the problems of training vouchers in particular. Initial evidence suggests that information asymmetries, a lack of providers in certain areas and restricted opportunities for policy coordination are obstacles to full achievement of the positive effects hoped for by proponents of the training voucher. The article concludes that improving the existing contracting-out system may have been a better path to higher efficiency.


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