Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Labour market training 207
able to “select among the market participants, thereby removing the poorest performing
ones.” 129
At the second stage of the process, there will be a role for government to play in
distributing vouchers, but also in collecting and disseminating information to participants
about the various classroom and on-the-job training programs available. Participants will
have strong incentives to identify and select effective training programs. There may also
be a role for government in accreditation.
At the third stage of the program, the government would have to maintain involvement
in the job-seeking process by setting up a mechanism through which individuals can take
stock of their needs and abilities and enter either a remedial 3Rs education program or
pursue a longer-term more vocationally-oriented program, perhaps at a community
college. A further role for government at the third stage could include extending the
income-contingent loan program, initially set up for those engaged in post-secondary
education (described in Chapter 9) for labour market trainees pursuing vocational
education.
Political economy
In both Canada and the United States, a mixture of public and private organizations
already provide labour market training. While the efficacy of existing programs appears
to be mixed or poor, reforms that entail higher levels of government expenditures are
likely to be resisted by many taxpayers, while those who stand to benefit directly from
labour market training—the unemployed or potentially unemployed—are politically
marginalized and do not have a significant voice in public policy debates. In order to
enhance the public appeal of a broad-based voucher program for labour market training,
it is likely that reforms will need to be widely perceived as beneficial to society as a
whole and not simply the unemployed, and as well will mostly entail the redeployment of
existing public resources rather than their augmentation. One means by which the scope
of appeal of voucher-oriented reforms to labour market training programs might be
broadened is to tie these reforms to existing trends in social policy reform. Many of the
goals of welfare reform are consistent with the structure of voucher-oriented labour
market training programs. The importance of individual responsibility for training
choices and time limits on transfer payments as incentives to pursue job-training
opportunities more effectively are goals that might best be pursued through a joint
strategy that eliminates welfare-dependency (and the social pathologies that often
accompany it) and increases the general skill levels of unemployed workers.
Conclusions
A voucher prpgram that pays sufficient attention to key design challenges may represent
a major step forward in the amelioration of unemployment. Such a program could both
increase the range of options available to the unemployed and foster competition on the
supply-side so that job search and training services are continuously improved. If the full
potential of a voucher scheme can be tapped, or even approximated, reliance on social
assistance will decrease dramatically—with significant savings for the state.