Unemployment increased drastically over the course of the Great Recession from 4.5 percent prior to the recession to 10 percent at its peak in October 2009. Since then, the unemployment rate has come down steadily, and it stood at 5.8 percent in November 2014. Based on existing analyses and some...

Activation policies aimed at getting working-age people off benefits and into work have become a buzzword in labour market policies. Yet they are defined and implemented differently across OECD countries, and their success rates vary too. The Great Recession has posed a severe stress test for...

While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/2019, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for 1 year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term...

First, this paper empirically evaluates the incidence of the Japanese place-based job creation program, which has rarely been studied in Japan. The program increases employment, especially in the agricultural, retail trade, and service sectors, which most treated municipalities promote. Second,...

There has been a strong interest in short-time work (STW) schemes during the global financial crisis. Using data for 23 OECD countries for the period 2004 Q1 to 2010 Q4, this paper analyses the quantitative effects of STW programmes on labour market outcomes. Special attention is given to the...

The public employment service (PES) makes use in many countries of vacancy referrals as to facilitate the matching between unemployed workers and vacancies. Based on a “timing-of-events” approach to control for selective participation, this study evaluates whether this policy instrument...

The number of long-term unemployed in Germany has stagnated at around one million for several years. Despite excellent labour market conditions, the long-term unemployment rate is well above the OECD average. Therefore, the "carrot and stick" principle of Hartz reforms is in clear need of...

During the last decade, unemployment in Greece climbed up to 28%, almost quadrupling due to the economic crisis that hit Greece. In the present paper, we examine the determinants of the unemployment dynamics and the impact of the minimum wage on the probability of making a transition into and...

This paper examines the effectiveness of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in improving labour market outcomes, especially of low-skilled individuals, by means of a pooled cross-country and time series database for 31 advanced countries during the period 1985–2010. The analysis includes...

This paper analyses the main features and determinants of labour market reforms in the EU over the period of 2000 - 2011 using the European Commission LABREF database. The data suggests that the timing, focus, and geographical distribution of reforms reflect the interplay between economic shocks...