European worlds of inclusive activation: The organisational challenges of coordinated service provision

Abstract

For activation policies to succeed, the provision of social services in addition to labour‐market services is essential, as social services are a prerequisite for integrating groups with complex social problems into the labour market. Activation policies based on social services can be termed inclusive. They require not only a sufficient financial basis, but also governance structures that deal with the organisational challenges associated with coordinated service provision, including fragmented competences and conflicts between different political arenas and territorial levels. This article analyses the capacity of five countries − Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK − to provide coordinated labour‐market and social services from a multidimensional, multilevel and multi‐stakeholder perspective. The findings show that coordinated service provision requires profound changes to national and local governance structures. Future research should take into account the organisational challenges of integrating social and employment services. Key Practitioner Message: ● The coordinated provision of employment and social services is an important precondition for integrating long‐term unemployed and other disadvantaged groups into the labour market.

Youth‐focused active labour market programmes in a constraining welfare regime: A qualitative reading of programmes in Egypt

“…Many shadow programmes exist, showing no clear outputs, let alone evidence of impact. This fragmentation of services stands in contrast to growing international calls for the integration of ALMPs into other social services (Minas, ); and for the implementation of principles of New Public Management of performance measurement, competition benchmarking, auditing and one‐stop‐shops in service delivery (Heidenreich & Aurich‐Beerheide, ).…”

“…Second, the analysis contributes to the theorisation about ALMPs in welfare regimes in developing countries. This is an exercise fraught with theoretical challenges, in that ALMPs have primarily been studied in the context of welfare regimes in developed countries (see e.g., Bonoli, ; Heidenreich & Aurich‐Beerheide, ; Lindsay & Mailand, ). Studying ALMPs outside this context is curtailed by the dual challenge of the weak state of knowledge and a tenuous theoretical backing.…”

The end of the honeymoon: The increasing differentiation of (long-term) unemployment risks in Europe

“…Bentolila et al (2012) have highlighted the importance of the difference between the EPL for fixed-term and permanent contracts, because larger gaps between dismissal costs for permanent and temporary jobs might increase the unemployment risks especially for temporary workers. This refers to the role of activation strategies, which may increase the obligation, possibility and interest in taking up a new job through various enabling and demanding measures (Heidenreich and Aurich-Beerheide, 2014). A higher EPL level should be correlated with higher unemployment while a higher gap should lower the risk of LTU for persons with a fixed-term contract, because firing costs are lower (Boeri, 2011).…”

Frontline workers' competency in activation work

“…Heidenreich and Aurich‐Beerheide's () description of a necessary twofold services provision in frontline work is reflected in Frøyland and Spjelkavik's (2012) and Spjelkavik's () twofold definition of activation competency. They suggested that activation competency consists of two distinct dimensions: labour market competency and user‐oriented competency.…”