Monitoring of labour market policy in the EU member states

Abstract

"In recent years monitoring of labour market policy has become a major issue for programme implementation. This holds true at the individual EU member states as well as on a European level. Politicians and programme administrators in individual member states direct more efforts than ever before to efficient administration and close follow up of employment measures. The reasons for it being among others the increasing importance of spending for employment measures, tight public budgets and changes towards a leaner, more efficient new public service with sometimes far reaching decentralisation/deconcentration of the delivery of programmes. While there is a clear trend towards more and more monitoring, the 'state of the art' of monitoring of (active) labour market policy varies accross countries. All monitor some measures but with one or two exceptions none monitor all of their labour market policy. A north/south divide in monitoring appears, with few of the northern countries with long experience of labour market programmes having the most sophisticated systems. Some of the difficulties countries experience are: a) a multitude of actors involved and communication and cooperation problems among them, b) the lack of clear goals in employment policy measures, c) the lack of data with which to construct monitoring indicators, d) the lack of resources in personnel and funds for effective monitoring, e) problems of feedback between monitoring and programme design and implementation and f) problems of acceptance by those monitored and the right choice of incentives. The present paper outlines the state of the art of both individual countries' monitoring systems and the Commission's information sources, but deals especially with individual countries' monitoring systems, shows best practice systems and develops ideas for an 'idealtypical' monitoring system." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Auer, P. & Kruppe, T. (1996): Monitoring of labour market policy in the EU member states. (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. Discussion papers FS 1 96-202), Berlin, 53 p.