Cluster-analytical classification of the employment office areas of eastern and western Germany for a comparative examination of regional integration balances

Abstract

"From mid-1999 each employment office has to draw up an integration balance once a year in accordance with §11 of the Social Code Volume III, thus making transparent the use and effectiveness of discretionary benefits of active employment promotion. So-called destination rates constitute the fundamental element of these integration balances. The destination rates provide information about how many of the people who completed employment or training measures in a calendar year are no longer registered as unemployed six months after completing the measure. Comparisons of these regional destination rates can, however, only produce information about the effectiveness of employment and training measures if it is guaranteed that the employment offices under examination are similar to each other - i.e. comparable - with regard to those factors, besides the use of the measure, which have an influence on the regional integration result. If this is not the case there is a danger of special differences in the regional destination rates which are due to regional differences in the labour market situation being wrongly interpreted as policy effects. The objective of the present regional classification was to identify comparable employment office areas in this sense. With the aid of the cluster analysis and on the basis of six regional indicators - among other things the underemployment rate in the annual average for 1997, the duration of unemployment in 1997, the recruitment rate for the period July 1996 to June 1997 and the employment trend in the same period - the 141 employment office areas of western Germany and Berlin as well as the 34 eastern German employment office areas were combined into 9 and 3 regional clusters respectively. Each cluster includes areas with similar labour market situations and dynamics." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Hirschenauer, F. (1999): Clusteranalytische Typisierung der west- und ostdeutschen Arbeitsamtsbezirke zur vergleichenden Betrachtung regionaler Eingliederungsbilanzen. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 32, No. 2, p. 169-175.