Abstract

From 2000 until 2008 statutory employment promotion in Germany under the terms of SGB III, book three of the German Social Code, has been supplemented by the national so-called “ESF-BA programme”, which is co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). Basically, the programme allows persons to be integrated in active employment promotion who otherwise would not have been entitled to participate in any vocational training measures or further temporary training schemes, because they lack the required preconditions to draw subsistence money under the rules of SGB III and II. Furthermore, SGB III legislation is complemented by innovative measure concepts such as coaching of business start-ups, qualification of persons affected by structural short-time work or transfer short-time measures and promotion of language skills of unemployed persons with a migration background.

Accompanying research of the ESF-BA programme is focussed on evaluation and analysis of the programme’s implementation and effectiveness. Above of all, the method of microanalytic impact analysis is used to evaluate the effects of ESF-promoted SGB III measures in comparison to the corresponding statutory measures without additional ESF funding as well as to non-participation in incentive measures. To which degree the programme’s objectives have been achieved and implemented is evaluated on a cross-programme level taking into account interrelationships to superior ESF objectives (including EC employment guidelines) as well as to ESF-promoted SGB III measures. At the same time, a possible inherent “European added value“ is considered.

Accompanying research is structured in several subprojects: the ESF-complementary projects related to further vocational training, training measures, business start-ups, short-time work and vocational language competence of migrants are fundamental to the elaboration of specific impact analyses of the programme’s individual promotion approaches. Additionally, there are programme-related cross-section projects dealing with implementation, target group approaching, aggregated evaluation by regions and ranking of the programme within the ESF-programmes currently run in Germany.