Labour Market Programmes and Activation Strategies: Evaluating the Impacts

Do active labour market programmes really improve labour market performance? Activation programmes reduce the number of people on benefits directly through the impact of their services on the programme participants, but also indirectly because some benefit recipients prefer to leave unemployment instead of complying with programme requirements. Intensive employment services and training programmes may have relatively favourable impacts on labour force participation and promote earnings progression, although these impacts often appear two or more years after individuals have participated in the programmes. Programmes can have displacement effects when participants find jobs to the detriment of non-participants thus reducing net job gains, but programmes can also have positive labour demand and multiplier effects