Work opportunities for UB II recipients: two types with different impact

Abstract

"Work opportunities aim at improving the employment prospects of welfare recipients with particularly low job finding prospects. This study investigates whether the two different types of work opportunities in Germany - One-Euro-Jobs (a workfare scheme) and work opportunities subsidizing contributory jobs - actually improve the labour market performance of participants and compares the two schemes with respect to their effectiveness. We find both schemes to decrease the employment prospects of participants in the short term. In the medium term, positive employment effects emerge for most participant groups. These positive effects emerge faster and are stronger for work opportunities subsidizing contributory jobs than for One-Euro-Jobs. There are a number of potential explanations for the better performance of work opportunities subsidizing contributory jobs. E.g., in contrast to One-Euro-Jobs, they are not restricted to jobs in the public interest and the number of participants is much lower reflecting presumably that job centres assign participants more carefully according to their specific needs to work opportunities subsidizing contributory jobs." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Hohmeyer, K. & Wolff, J. (2012): Arbeitsgelegenheiten im SGB II: Zwei Varianten mit unterschiedlicher Wirkung. (IAB-Kurzbericht 09/2012), Nürnberg, 8 p.