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Overall Developments between 60 and 64 were off work on long-term sick leave, as against 33% in 1990. The emerging demographic trend points towards a rise in the proportion of younger (16- to 19-year-olds and 20- to 24-year-olds) and older (60 to 64-year-olds) people who are fit to work. Since the number of people in work and the level of employment in these groups are considerably lower than the average, this will have a negative impact on the supply of labour and the employment figures. A precondition for a positive employment trend is that more young people undergo satisfactory basic training. The trend towards a higher degree of inactivity among young people, meaning more youngsters neither in work, nor undergoing organised training, needs to be given greater attention. It is above all amongst young people, older people and immigrants that the level of employment has to be improved if Sweden is to maintain its overall present level of hours worked. The report also highlights the fact that today there is a potential supply of labour amongst those who are both in and out of work. Today’s jobless constitute an important future resource, but it ought to be possible to get more people who are underemployed or out of work altogether and are not undergoing any training actively to go back to work. One central conclusion in the Government report is that Sweden needs to increase its labour supply in future if it is to boost growth and safeguard the country’s future welfare. Issues to do with the labour supply are under discussion not only in Sweden, but also in an international context. The aim of increasing the labour supply has also left its mark on a fair number of political decisions. Interest in aspects of the labour supply used to be conditioned entirely by the state of the economy, with interest primarily aroused in times of growing manpower shortages. But, in the meantime there is plenty of evidence to suggest that supplyrelated issues will come to be remembered in quite a different manner than before. The great need for new jobs that is anticipated will follow in the wake of the higher number of pensioners after 2010, not least within the public sector, will demand ever greater political attention. Irrespective of the economic situation and future growth in productivity, Sweden will find itself grappling with a structural problem that has to do with a demographically-conditioned trend towards a greater number of people requiring support once there are more people of care-dependent age compared with the number of individuals who are fit to work. Sweden needs to increase its knowledge about the various prerequisites associated with the labour supply for different groups of the population and people of different ages. It is clear that today far too little is known about about the processes that induce so many youngsters to drop out of school or education and working life. It is also important to point out that demographic imbalances and a growing shortage of labour will probably not automatically solve our problems associated with the low numbers of immigrants. On the contrary, greater efforts will be required to foster the integration process. Higher productivity opens up the way for growth and rising consumption, but does not automatically facilitate the financing of public welfare. If such welfare is to be funded, people need to work more taxable hours, especially bearing in mind that Sweden is a country with one of the oldest populations. The report stresses the importance of making use of the unexploited manpower potential already in Sweden, meaning amongst youngsters, older people and immigrants. There is also a potential labour supply among the disabled and women, groups whose level of employment is below the average, despite the fact that Sweden has a high proportion of women in work. Another challenge will consist in achieving an extensive supply of labour whilst ensuring that those in work continually upgrade their skills. The report suggests that the future policy in Sweden should focus more on measures and changes that can help to improve the labour supply. A project for developing targeting and results-oriented management Sweden’s network of employment offices is making great efforts to develop and improve its working methods and services. One of the aims is to achieve a closer correspondence between the planning of activities and their successful outcome. Targeting and results-oriented management entails setting up a chain whereby the Government and Parliament (Riksdag) set targets for the employment offices via the central AMS (Employment Service), which breaks down the objectives and distributes the respective resources to regional county labour boards. These labour boards then break down the objectives and dispense the resources to local employment offices. The chain then goes all the way back again through the county labour boards, AMS, and then the Government and Parliament. Within this chain, it is the actual job mediation work done by local employment offices that is decisive in determining outcomes and whether the assignment handed down by the Government and Parliament can be fulfilled. Consequently, the development work is geared towards improving the everyday work done by local employment offices and the operational planning of activities (including follow-up). At the same time, the focus is on the mediation organisation’s three core tasks: matching, training and activating. In a major trial, a model for operational planning is now being tested in which the manager and staff at the local employment office engage in dialogue to decide on the operational goals and the levels at which the targets are to be set. The operational targets (“objectives to meet”) must describe specific activities which have to be implemented by the individual employment offices if the objectives are to be reached. The follow-up must take the form of a dialogue between the manager and the team, to take place every fortnight. The follow-up should emphasise any positive results, but also examine anything that did not go as well and ascertain where improvements need to be made. The issues tackled may include skills development or methods. The county labour boards will also be obliged to enter into a dialogue at least once a month with the heads of the employment offices in their respective county to discuss specific efforts and the direction in which the plans for continuing efforts should point. Furthermore, every quarter the director-general must have a follow-up meeting with each county labour board manager. In the long run, job mediation is developed further through dialogue between management and staff regarding operational activities. That dialogue becomes a focus of the ensuing activities and a natural forum for discussing priorities, skills development, organisational issues and so on. The staff gain greater influence over the centre’s activities and greater demands are made on management to steer the dialogue in a direction that will focus it on specific topical issues. 24 Spring 2003 | European Employment Observatory Review
This reinforced targeting and results-oriented management can be summed up in six points: • More frequent follow-up will take place; • The aims of activities will be adapted to regional and/or local situations; • Separate assignments can be given to different regions; • Operational objectives will facilitate day-to-day management; • Discussions about targets and results will put every member of staff in the spotlight; • The focus on core tasks will facilitate prioritisation. IT support for management and planning A system of IT support is currently being devised to assist with operational planning at office level. The new system will gather and compile information from several existing systems and present them at office level. The first step has been taken with the production of an application entitled “The Manager’s Window”. The development of corresponding IT support for administrative staff is planned. On the basis of the local data in “The Manager’s Window”, the head of the office can decide, in conjunction with staff members and/or the team, to proceed with suitable measures at the job centre. For instance, a target may be set stating that work must be found for 70% of jobseekers within 90 days of the end of their vocational training. On the basis of the category of jobseeker and such data, the new IT system can be used to project the outcome 90 days later. Should it turn out that the target will not be attained, the employment office’s resources can then focus on this objective at an early stage. The IT system also indicates the causes as to why a measure is not entirely effective and how this can be changed. In the aforementioned example, the office in question may pay for another type of training, or special efforts may be required before certain jobseekers conclude their training. The IT system will indicate which jobseekers qualify for special efforts and the responsible member of staff. On the other hand, should the IT system indicate that the target will be attained, this will indicate that the office’s structure for vocational training works, thereby enabling other activities to be given a higher priority. “The Manager’s Window” provides every head of an employment office with knowledge of what is going on at the office in specific terms, such as the number of people involved in activities to do with jobseekers, the number of people engaged in respective labour market policy programmes, and the number of people whose individual action plans need upgrading. In a subsequent stage, the staff will also be able to match their efforts to their targets. Quality assessment of the Activity Guarantee programme The Activity Guarantee, for unemployed persons in Sweden, was inaugurated on 1 August 2000. Since then it has undergone a rapid expansion and the follow-up and quality assurance is a permanently ongoing task. A new quality assurance of a number of identified qualitative factors has recently taken place. The principal aims of the Activity Guarantee are to: • substantially improve prospects for the unemployed in the regular labour market; • reduce long-term unemployment; Overall Developments • abolish long enrolment times; • reduce the percentage of re-enrolments. A secondary objective is to join with various employers in creating suitable jobs qualifying for subsidies. The Activity Guarantee is for people aged 20 or over who are searching for employment through the public Employment Service and are long-term enrolled or in danger of becoming so. The Activity Guarantee utilises jobseeker activities and other preexisting labour market policy programmes. The difference compared with participation in single labour market policy programmes is that all available programmes will be gathered under one roof, with the individual jobseeker plan running through all activities. Every participant will receive support and intensive guidance from the Employment Service handling officer (counsellor) in a small group of 10 or 15 jobseekers. They will, at the same time, have access to the full range of regular labour market policy programmes. At the commencement of the Activity Guarantee, counsellor and jobseeker together will draw up an individual action plan, which will then form the backbone of the activity. The individual action plan will be reassessed regularly and at least once a year. The jobseeker continues to take part in Activity Guarantee activities until he or she has had a regular job for at least six months, starts a form of training or education other than employment training, or drops out of the labour market policy systems. Activity Guarantee participants receive payment in the form of activity support. It corresponds to the compensation paid to an unemployed person out of unemployment insurance. Work under the Activity Guarantee is to proceed in close cooperation with national and local government, the enterprise sector and the social partners. An important task here is to join with other agencies in defining and “selling” local targets for the activity and, not least, in following up and developing the activities. All handling officers/counsellors and Employment Service managers/senior executives were asked to assess the quality of the Activity Guarantee recently by filling in a specially designed Internet-based evaluation matrix covering eight main areas. The areas are: information for prospective participants, the counsellor, the action plan, full-time activities, core amenities of the Employment Service, facilities and equipment, the role of the senior executive, and follow-up of activities. Each main area is broken down into between one and four sub-areas, and each sub-area is described as having five levels of development where the top level is an objective. The result is drawn up in the form of a bar chart for each region and each Employment Service. The quality assessment gives each Employment Service an excellent opportunity to try and make timely improvements. A general overview points to good results and a need for further development. Particular attention should be paid to the area of fulltime activities, which covers the content and form of activities. This is an important factor with respect to the number of people getting jobs. Well-targeted company contacts are deemed to be the single most important factor driving success. The next evaluation is due to take place in April 2003, and a third gauging of the situation is planned by the autumn of 2003. The quality-related measures implemented by a number of Employment Offices will be monitored by the Swedish Labour Market Board Spring 2003 | European Employment Observatory Review 25
Page 1 and 2: Employment & European Social Fund E
Page 3 and 4: European Employment Observatory Rev
Page 5 and 6: Table of Contents Policies Overall
Page 7 and 8: AUSTRIA The programme of the Austri
Page 9 and 10: FINLAND Essential changes to legisl
Page 11 and 12: At least one quarter of the members
Page 13 and 14: in the event of a third and subsequ
Page 15 and 16: of active labour-market policy, as
Page 17 and 18: Training Networks Programme The Tra
Page 19 and 20: Subsequently, the provisions concer
Page 21 and 22: a strengthening and revitalisation
Page 23: workers into the labour market as w
Page 27 and 28: BELGIUM The Occupational Immersion
Page 29 and 30: Agreement on converting 10,000 subs
Page 31 and 32: outplacement procedure, its duratio
Page 33 and 34: Integration agreements Another impo
Page 35 and 36: and local job and volunteering oppo
Page 37 and 38: FINLAND Preliminary information on
Page 39 and 40: BELGIUM Harmonisation and simplific
Page 41 and 42: • Returning migrants Eligibility
Page 43 and 44: Playing the generation game: an ove
Page 45 and 46: workers, who have either exited the
Page 47 and 48: e) Finland’s comprehensive approa
Page 49 and 50: Compared with the figures for 1997,
Page 51 and 52: Table 4: Activity quotas by age and
Page 53 and 54: Table 6: Length of unemployment by
Page 55 and 56: 4Prospects In view of the demograph
Page 57 and 58: and is exempted from the obligation
Page 59 and 60: The Government is also addressing t
Page 61 and 62: permanente, 97-124 Desmet, R. and J
Page 63 and 64: Table 4: Breakdown by age of older
Page 65 and 66: Figure 1: Gender gap in the activit
Page 67 and 68: Figure 5: Effective and statutory r
Page 69 and 70: 3. Recent trends in policies As alr
Page 71 and 72: 3.3 Labour market programmes for el
Page 73 and 74: Figure 1: Population aged 15 and ov
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Table 3: Labour market transition r
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companies. One of these projects wa
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Table 2: Projection of the economic
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Table 8: Numbers entering Early Ret
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Figure 1: Rate of access to trainin
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Germany 1 Introduction As far back
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Figure 3: Potentially economically
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Figure 5: Take-up of early-retireme
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Figure 8: Average amounts paid unde
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64.5% (Hain/Tautz 2001: 365) withou
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Table 6: Collectively agreed workin
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Strukturbruch und Arbeitsmark-tentw
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men (Figure 3). In clear contrast w
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Figure 5: Unemployment rates, males
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More recent data, provided by Euros
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pensions retracted to normal levels
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Ireland 1. Introduction This Paper
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Table 3: Labour force trends, 1991-
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Table 4: Employment by age across s
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Occupational pensions There are als
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Italy 1. Introduction The EU offici
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Table 7: Activity rates (age 55-64)
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Table 10: Forecasts of employment r
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should take the territorial imbalan
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2. Statistical Data 5 Number of pen
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4.2 Measures to encourage older wor
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6. Conclusions With regard to keepi
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level. No taxes and social premiums
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edundancy scheme by employers. The
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uittreding: early retirement) schem
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Figure 4: Dependency and ageing ind
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Figure 8: Percentage of working age
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Figure 11: Average age of workers l
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Figure 2: percentage change between
Page 143 and 144:
Figure 4: Figure 5: 25 20 15 10 0 -
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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Figu
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However, this measure does not cove
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Table 1(a): Employment rate, men, 5
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Figure 3(b): Main Source of income
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4. Policies to stimulate active age
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Appendix Table A1(a): Participation
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Venta • Salg • Verkauf • Pvl
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