Search results

Examines the Kansas job opportunities and basic skills programme to analyse why education and training programmes fail to reduce poverty and promote self‐reliance for programme participants. Uses profit model analysis to examine the effect of the Kansas job opportunities and basic skills programme on job readiness and employment. Examines client accountability to evaluate compliance with programme directives. Concludes that welfare recipient participation rates in KanWork education and training hold the key to understanding why Kansas welfare programmes contribute little to clients gaining marketable job skills.

Economists have known for some time that increases in the amounts of capital and labour cannot explain all of the growth of output (Kendrick, 1961, 1976). Schultz showed the potential importance of human resource development in explaining this residual when he made estimates of investments in education for the period 1900 to 1957. He stated that educational capital was clearly an important element in production and that it had risen at a much faster rate than reproducible non‐human wealth (Schultz, 1960, 1962).

This paper reports on the implementation and evaluation of the JOBS programme in Ireland. This is a training intervention to promote re‐employment and improve mental health among unemployed people that was implemented on a pilot basis in the border region of the Republic and Northern Ireland. Programme participants were unemployed people recruited from local training and employment offices and health agencies. The evaluation indicated that the programme was implemented successfully and led to improved psychological and re‐employment outcomes for the intervention group, lasting up to 12 months post‐intervention. This paper reflects on the implementation issues that arose in adapting an international evidence‐based programme to the local setting and considers the implications of the evaluation findings for the roll out of the programme on a larger scale.

The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of selected characteristics of jobseekers on employers’ decisions regarding potential hires (direct and probabilistic signals). The main focus of the study is to test the impact of jobseekers’ participation in selected active labour market programmes on employers’ hiring decisions for three positions: unskilled worker, skilled worker and administrative employee. Other characteristics tested include age, gender, presence of children in the household, state of health, experience of short- and long-term unemployment and indebtedness.

This study analyses data from a representative survey of employers with five or more employees in the Czech Republic. The survey was conducted in December 2020 using stratified random sampling, combining online questionnaires and personal interviews. The study includes 1,040 employers and uses the factorial survey experiment (FSE) design.

The results of the FSE suggest that the perceived positive impact of completing one of the activation programmes depends on the position for which the candidate is being recruited. While for the unskilled job category, the completion of any of the tested schemes (training, subsidised jobs or public works) had a positive effect; for the skilled job category, only the training and subsidised jobs schemes had a positive effect; and for the administrative job category, public works programme even had a negative effect.

A somewhat limiting factor in the context of this study seems to be the definitions of the positions tested (unskilled and skilled workers and administrative staff). The decision-making of the respondents was somewhat restricted by such broadly defined categories. Typically, studies with FSE designs have a focus on a specific sector of the economy, which allows for a better definition of the positions or jobs under test. The relationship between position and the impact of individual characteristics is clearly a matter for further research.

The results of the study confirm that completion of the activation programme, as well as other candidate characteristics, constitute differentiating signals for employers that influence their hiring decisions. At the same time, there is evidence that the training programme and the subsidised jobs programme are effective in terms of increasing participants’ chances of employment.

The demand side should be included in the evaluation of activation policies. The design of the FSE provides an appropriate way to test the impact of activation measures on the decision-making of employers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of workfare programme participation on self-efficacy, because many studies suggest that sufficient self-efficacy is essential for successful job search in modern labour markets.

The paper analyses an exemplary German workfare programme’ the so-called “One-Euro-Jobs” programme and examines whether participation in this programme improved the self-efficacy of participants. The analyses are based on survey data (Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security) that were combined with administrative records of the Statistics Department of the German Federal Employment Agency to obtain more reliable information on programme participation. To detect causal effects of participation, the authors apply propensity score matching.

The findings show that participants’ self-efficacy, on average, was not improved by programme participation. Also, no well-determined positive effects of programme participation were found when controlling for the individual baseline level of self-efficacy.

The findings suggest that workfare programme participation did not fulfil several of the psychological functions of work necessary to enhance participants’ self-efficacy. The authors suggest a two-step approach to enhancing individuals’ self-efficacy and their job-search abilities: in the first step, workfare participation aims to improve employability; in the second step, participants can learn the extent to which they have become ready to work in a regular subsidised job.

Various studies examine the effect of workfare programme participation on employment prospects, well-being, health or social participation. Within the discourse on active labour market policy, this paper is the first to study the effect of workfare programme participation on self-efficacy.

The growing awareness in the past few years of the increasingly acute nature of unemployment levels throughout industrial society has been reflected in the adoption by a variety of countries of a number of special work creation schemes for social groups experiencing particular difficulties in finding and sustaining employment. While cynical commentators in individual countries have dismissed in varying degrees such programmes as being essentially synonymous with the special employment measures of the Great Depression, there seems little obvious justification or merit in identifying, for example, Job Creation in Britain with the former Public Works Programme; the Neighbourhood Youth Corps, Emergency Employment Act and the more recent Comprehensive Employment and Training Act in the US with the New Deal Public Relief Acts or the “ArbeitsBeschaffungsMassnahmen” in Germany with the ReichsArbeitDienst. While the new schemes may at their weakest moments reflect a superficial similarity with aspects of such older programmes, there is little doubt that, in the main, job creation measures of whatever type, which have been introduced since the early 1970s, differ in scope, orientation and intention from their traditional public works predecessors. Such an interpretation seems not only to be supported by the fact that countries which introduced such schemes some years ago, are continually updating, revising and refining the structure and conditions of their programme and evaluating their performance in meeting the needs of the client groups but that such early experiences and their subsequent restructurings constitute examples of particular manpower policy initiatives which continue to be followed as operating models for countries newly embarking on programmes of a similar type.

This study aids to examine the impact of extending the internship period on the transition from school to work of vocational school of higher education graduates and subsequent employment outcomes.

Within the scope of the study, the results regarding the labour market of the vocational school students (experimental group) whose internship period were extended were compared with the results of the vocational school students (control group) whose internship period remained the same. Thus, it is provided to examine the effects of prolonging the internship period. The surveys were conducted five years after graduation.

The study found that increasing the duration of the internship period and making it a compulsory part of the curriculum facilitates the transition from school to work for graduates. Graduates who participate in the programme with a long internship period find a job in a shorter time and with higher wages than the control group. It is found that those in the experimental group with an extended internship period have higher employment rates and wage levels compared to those in the control group, five years after graduation.

Although there are publications, in the international literature, on the impact of internship, there are only few publications in which experimental and control groups are formed, as in this article. The second contribution of the study is to measure the impact of internship on employment outcomes five years after graduation. The third important contribution of the study is that it was conducted in Turkey, which has a young population and is an emerging market. This study contributes significantly to the restructuring of vocational higher education, especially in countries that are struggling with youth unemployment.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between different organisational development programmes (360-degree feedback; Coaching; Job assignment; Employee assistance programmes; On-the-job training; Web-based career information; Continuous professional development; External education provision) and employees’ career development. The implications of the moderating effects of gender on the relationships between these eight organisational programmes and career development are assessed.

To examine hypothesised relationships on eight organisational programmes and career development, this paper computed moderated regression analyses using the PROCESS macro (3.5), for a two-way analysis of variance (Hayes, 2018). The data collected are based on a survey sample of employees (n = 322) working in Scotland.

Two main findings arose from this empirical study. First, there are significant direct relationships between seven out of the eight organisational development programmes and their influences on employees’ career development. Second, gender is a significant moderator for four of the programmes’ relationship with career development, namely, coaching, web-based career information, continuous professional development and external education provision. However, gender failed to moderate the four other programmes’ (i.e. 360-degree feedback, job assignment, employee assistance programmes and on-the-job training) relationship with career development.

This paper concludes that closer attention should be given to the organisational design of these development programmes and consideration of potential gender differences in employees’ perception of their importance for career development in their organisation. To date, the majority of research in the literature has concentrated on the impact of training on career development, so this study contributes to the body of knowledge on a set of organisational development programmes and their effect on career development moderated by gender.

In recent years, Marks and Spencer has chosen to bring in more senior personnel from “the outside”. In order to ensure that they succeeded within their new environment, and that the organisation likewise gained from any particular expertise they might be able to bring to their new “home”, a programme was devised to bring these benefits about. The programme is described, and how the consultant involved internal trainers to run it and future events is set out.

To enhance the development of individuals for executive positions, fast‐track management development programmes have been adopted by many organisations. However, such programmes do not always lead to positive consequences for the participant. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the frustrations of participants in an entry‐level fast‐track programme. Results of the study suggest several important lessons for those responsible for fast‐track programmes. First, participants′ major frustrations involved issues regarding ongoing career guidance, future job assignment uncertainty, and the degree of challenge, responsibility, and variety inherent in their job assignments. Second, participants are likely to have high expectations for themselves and their careers which must be considered. Third, company executives and programme supervisors may misjudge the frustrations of participants; therefore, monitoring such frustrations is important.