Do Labour Market Programmes Speed up the Return to Work?

We evaluate the impact of labour market programmes on unemployment durations in Norway, by means of a distribution-free mixed proportional competing risks hazard rate model. We find that programme participation, once completed, improves employment prospects, but that there is often an opportunity cost in the form of a lock-in effect during participation. The average net effect of programme participation on the length of the job search period is found to be around zero. For participants with poor employment prospects, the favourable post-programme effects outweigh the negative lock-in effects. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Comparing the Probability of Unemployment in Southern Greece Vis-À-Vis the Entire Country

ABSTRACT. The basic aim of this paper is to investigate the impact that educational level of individuals and participation in training programmes (apprenticeship, intra-firm training, continuing vocational training, popular training) have on their job prospects in Southern Greece (namely the regions of Southern Aegean and Crete) during the implementation of the first Community Support Framework (1989–1993). We also research the differences between the two regions under study and the entire country. We try to see whether the educational level itself and participation in training programmes increased the chances of finding a job. More specifically, we research what are the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of someone in the examined population finding a job, how those chances change (if they do) after the introduction of training courses and, also, whether University graduates, in contrast to most of the rest of the EU member states, face greater difficulties in finding a job than non-University graduates, as a series of studies for Greece conclude. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyse individual anonymised records (micro-data) from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for both employed and unemployed in those two regions at NUTS 2 level. KEY WORDS: spatial econometrics; labour economics policies; human capital; skills; regional, urban and rural analyses