Public Employment Services (PES) in industrialized countries have traditionally provided job-brokering services - arranging for jobseekers to obtain jobs and employers to fill vacancies. Increasingly, they also administer unemployment benefits and provide for the delivery of labor market...

For selected target groups, such as unemployed and disadvantaged youth, Christoph Ehlert demonstrates that flexible and well-targeted programmes significantly improve employment chances. To be effective, these programmes must combine individual coaching, classroom training and temporary work....

Profiling tools help to deliver employment services more efficiently. They can ensure that more costly, intensive services are targeted at jobseekers most at risk of becoming long term unemployed. Moreover, the detailed information on the employment barriers facing jobseekers obtained through...

In a randomised controlled trial in Austria, lowering caseloads for caseworkers in a Public Employment Office led to more meetings with unemployed clients, more job offers, more programme assignments, and more sanctions for noncompliance with job search requirements. It shortened unemployment...