Make further vocational training pay: Possibilities and limits of promoting transitions by Public Employment Services (PES)

The current low participation rate of low-skilled workers in vocational re-training ac-tivities as well as the relatively high share of youth without vocational qualification are major challenges for German labour market policies. Recently implemented pro-grams by the Federal Employment Service (BA) to improve the management of school-to-work transitions as well as re-training activities of already employed work-ers are analyzed in the framework of Transitional Labour Markets (TLM). The TLM approach provides a series of proposals to manage social risks deriving from the need of making transitions during the life course. Preliminary evaluation results of early intervention and BA re-training programs are promising so far. However, ex-tending the existing programs or even institutionalizing life-long learning as a social right by converting contribution based unemployment insurance into employment insurance's a prominent TLM recommendation - would require high financial re-sources and possibly undermine individual as well as corporate responsibility.