The Territorial-Structural Consequences of the National Employment Development Programmes

Abstract

The key objective of the present document is the structural-regional examination of disadvantaged job seekers’ employability in the convergence regions of Hungary. One element of the comparative evaluation of the EU-supported, complex, national employability-enhancing programs is the exploration of successful and unsuccessful factors and the formulation of recommendations for future projects of this kind.
While the evaluation of the previous program beginning nearly a decade ago was based on document analysis (technical procedures, budget summaries, communications plans, action and progress schedules and reports), depth interviews with the employment departments staff provided assistance in the evaluation realized five years later. The assessment of interviews was completed by the public, follow-up data about persons successfully passing the program and still being employed half years after the closing of their program. This data was the basis for the measurement of regional impact, which necessitated the development of two regional reintegration indicators.
The group-specific evaluation pointed to the fact that low-skilled persons can be involved with much less efficiency into employability-enhancing programs. Although a large number of disadvantaged jobseekers are available in the studied counties, it should be considered how it is possible to find and involve economically inactive people in the future. The present study also shows that the expected marginal utility of an employability program is greater which is realized in an economic environment driven by labor market demand. Such programs, of course, can be considered long-term investment even without economy stimulating interventions, since one purpose in addition to employability is to increase mobility. However, this does not automatically mean a favorable change in the subjective factors of mobility, especially for disadvantaged groups of jobseekers.