What works, who works? The impact of active labour market programmes on the employment prospects of young people in Ireland

The international literature on active labour market programmes has generated inconsistent and confusing, but generally pessimistic, conclusions regarding their impact on the employment prospects of participants. This paper argues that much of this confusion is due to a general lack of attention to qualitative differences between programmes. The paper develops a typology of active labour market programmes, differentiating between training and employment measures on the basis of their orientation to the labour market and argues that programmes with a strong orientation to the market are more likely to improve the job prospects of participants than those characterised by weak market linkages. That hypothesis is tested using the results of a survey of young participants in labour market programmes in Ireland. The analysis shows that programmes with strong linkages to the labour market both enhance the employment prospects of their participants and increase their earnings, even when we take account of relevant individual characteristics such as education and previous labour market experience. -- Die internationale Literatur hat bisher inkonsistente und verwirrende, aber in der Regel pessimistische Schlußfolgerungen hinsichtlich der Beschäftigungswirkung für Teilnehmer in arbeitsmarktpolitischen Maßnahmen gezogen. In diesem Beitrag wird argumentiert, daß ein Großteil dieser Konfusion darauf zurückzuführen ist, daß den qualitativen Differenzen von Maßnahmen zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt wurde. Es wird daher eine Typologie aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik entwickelt, bei der die Weiterbildungs- und Beschäftigungsmaßnahmen nach ihren Marktbezügen unterschieden werden. Maßnahmen, die sich an den Bedürfnissen des Marktes orientieren, verbessern die Beschäftigungsperspektiven der Teilnehmer deutlich mehr als Maßnahmen mit schwacher Marktorientierung. Diese These wird - unter Verwendung von Kontrollgruppen - durch eine ökonometrische Analyse von jungen Teilnehmern in Arbeitsmarktmaßnahmen in Irland getestet und bestätigt: Maßnahmen mit starker Marktorientierung erhöhen sowohl die Beschäftigungschancen als auch die Löhne der Teilnehmer, selbst wenn man die relevanten individuellen Merkmale wie Bildung und Arbeitsmarkterfahrung in Betracht zieht.

Benchmarking, Social Partnership and Higher Remuneration: Wage Settling Institutions and the Public-Private Sector Wage Gap in Ireland

This paper uses data from the 2003 and 2006 National Employment Surveys to analyse the public-private sector wage gap in Ireland. In particular, we investigate the impact of awards implemented under a number of wage setting institutions on the pay differential. These include the pay increases awarded by the Public Service Benchmarking Body in its first report and the increases given to higher-level posts in the public sector by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector, Reports No. 40 and 41. The pay increases that were awarded under the Social Partnership process in Sustaining Progress and the Mid-Term Review of Part Two of Sustaining Progress are also captured in the data used. Furthermore, we assess the impact of pensions on the gap. The results indicate that the public sector pay premium increased dramatically from 9.7 to 21.6 per cent between 2003 and 2006. Furthermore, we found that by 2006 senior public service workers earned almost 8 per cent more than their private sector counterparts, while those in lower-level grades earned between 22 and 31 per cent more. The public premium results derived in this paper relating to March 2006 predate the payment of the two most recent Social Partnership wage deals, along with the pay increases awarded in the second Benchmarking exercise and by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in Reports No. 42 and 43. The results presented raise serious questions with respect to the justification for any further boosts to the pay levels of public sector workers. Finally, the study highlights the importance of correcting for differences in pension coverage between public and private sector workers when making any assessment of the public-private sector pay differential.

Temporary Jobs in Ireland: Does Class Influence Job Quality?

Fixed term and casual employment have become increasingly common in OECD countries in the last decade. Research suggests that non-permanent contracts are associated with lower job quality. This paper examines differentials in three indicators of job quality in Ireland: hourly wage, probability of training and level of autonomy. The paper also examines four hypotheses on job quality derived from transaction cost and insider-outsider theories which suggest an important interaction between social class position, non-permanent employment and job quality. Results show that fixed term and casual contracts are associated with lower earnings, less training and lower autonomy.

Evaluating State Programmes - “Natural Experiments” and Propensity Scores

Evaluations of programmes — for example, labour market interventions such as employment schemes and training courses — usually involve comparison of the performance of a treatment group (recipients of the programme) with a control group (non-recipients) as regards some response (gaining employment, for example). But the ideal of randomisation of individuals to groups is rarely possible in the social sciences and there may be substantial differences between groups in the distributions of individual characteristics that can affect response. Past practice in economics has been to try to use multiple regression models to adjust away the differences in observed characteristics, while also testing for sample selection bias. The Propensity Score approach, which is widely applied in epidemiology and related fields, focuses on the idea that “matching” individuals in the groups should be compared. The appropriate matching measure is usually taken to be the prior probability of programme participation. This paper describes the key ideas of the Propensity Score method and illustrates its application by reanalysis of some Irish data on training courses.

Are they Working? Market Orientation and the Effectiveness of Active Labour Market Programmes in Ireland. ESRI WP105. June 1999

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What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?

Ireland faces a crisis of mass unemployment. More than 14 per cent of the labour force is unemployed, and long-term unemployment is growing rapidly. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) - consisting of a range of assistance, training and employment programmes to support the unemployed back to work - have been held out as an essential part of the policy response to unemployment. This paper examines a wide range of national and international research on the effectiveness of ALMPs to ask: i) what do ALMPs do for the unemployed?, ii) are some programmes more effective than others? iii) what can we expect ALMPs to achieve in a recession? The paper shows that while research on the impact of active labour market programmes is far from conclusive and faces a number of difficult methodological challenges, it does provide a basis on which to identify the types of programmes that have been found to enhance the employment prospects of their unemployed clients.labour market/Policy

Matrix Metalloproteinase Activation and Inhibition

Processes leading to the in vitro activation of progelatinase-A, progelatinase-B and procollagenase were examined. Progelatinase-A can be activated by treatment with 4-aminophenyl mercuric acetate or by matrilysin and collagenase. The former induces an intramolecular self-cleavage before further intermolecular cleavages generate the mature enzyme. Whilst matrilysin can process progelatinase-A to the mature form, collagenase can only generate an intermediate by cleaving after N37 in the bait region. This intermediate is identical to that produced by a human tumour cell-line in culture. Gelatinase-A reciprocates the action of collagenase by completing the activation of the latter to generate a form of collagenase with full collagenolytic activity. This has been described as superactivation and is commonly associated with the action of stromelysin. It correlates with the appearance of F81 at the amino-terminus. The C-terminal domain plays no role in catalysis but may be important for in vivo activity. This is particularly evident for collagenase which loses the ability to cleave collagen in its absence. The interaction between collagenase and collagen was shown to be a potential target for designing inhibitors of collagen breakdown. The properties of a series of reversible, competitive hydroxamic acid matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors were studied. Incorporation of a phenylpropyi group in the P1' position produced inhibitors with picomolar affinities for the gelatinases and discriminated against collagenase and matrilysin and other classes of zinc metallopeptidases. The high affinity of these inhibitors for gelatinase-A was shown to derive from a combination of diffusion limited association rates and very slow dissociation rates. Methods were developed to allow the study of the pharmacokinetic properties of these inhibitors. Chemical modifications at the P2’ and P3’ positions were shown to result in inhibitors with oral bioavailabilities of greater than 30% in the mouse

Immigrants and Employer-Provided Training

Much has been written about the labour market outcomes for immigrants in their host countries, particularly with regard to earnings, employment and occupational attainment. However, much less attention has been paid to the question of whether immigrants are as likely to receive employer-provided training relative to comparable natives. As such training should be crucial in determining the labour market success of immigrants in the long run it is a critically important question. Using data from a large scale survey of employees in Ireland, we find that immigrants are less likely to receive training from employers, with immigrants from the New Member States of the EU experiencing a particular disadvantage. The immigrant training disadvantage arises in part from a failure on the part of immigrants to get employed by training-oriented firms. However, they also experience a training disadvantage relative to natives within firms where less training is provided.immigrants, employer-provided training, Ireland

The Determinants and Effects of Training at Work: Bringing the Workplace Back In. ESRI WP289. April 2009

This paper brings together two research fields: on work-related training and high performance work practices (HPWP), respectively. We estimate models of both the determinants and the impact of training using the NCPP/ESRI Changing Workplace Survey. Our models of the determinants of training confirm previous research: age, education, contract, tenure, and firm size all influence training. Several components of HPWP are associated with a higher probability of training, specifically, general (non-firm-specific) training. Participation in general training is associated with higher earnings, as is involvement in highly participative and consultative working arrangements, and performance reward systems. These patterns of training, and returns to training, are broadly consistent with HPWP approaches and represent a challenge to human capital theory

The Incidence and Correlates of Workplace Bullying in Ireland. ESRI WP148. 2002

This paper reports the results of the first nationally representative survey of the incidence of workplace bullying in the Republic of Ireland. The results are based on analysis of a sample of over 5,200 individuals in paid work outside the home. Overall, 7% of per persons in the work-place report that they experienced bullying in the 6 months preceding the survey. Bullying victimisation was far more common among employees than among the self-employed, and victimisation rates were higher among women than men. Almost 3% of those at work report that they experienced bullying either daily or several times per week during the reference period. Multivariate analyses of the incidence of bullying suggest that workplace characteristics are more influential than personal attributes in determining bullying victimisation