Economics Seminar: Are Active Labour Market Programmes Least Effective Where They Are Most Needed? The Case of the British New Deal for Young People

When?

Wednesday 9 March 2011, 16:00 to 17:00

Where?

04AD00

Open to:

Staff, Students, Public

Speaker:

Dr Jan Podivinsky (University of Southampton)

Dr Jan Podivinsky (University of Southampton)

"Are Active Labour Market Programmes Least Effective Where They Are Most Needed? The Case of the British New Deal for Young People"

Abstract

One view of Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs) is that they are ‘most needed’ in slack labour markets, where more unemployed workers require help finding jobs. But ALMPs might be less effective in such labour markets because there are fewer vacancies with which programme participants can match. In this paper we use data over a nine year period, across 300 local labour markets, to show that the unemployment exit and job entry impacts of participating in a mandatory ALMP for unemployed young people – the British New Deal for Young People (NDYP) – were negatively correlated with unemployment rates.