British Employment Measures: Policy and Evidence

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper examines how British labour market policy has developed over the decade up to mid‐1986 and summarises the evidence available on the effects of the so‐called 'special employment measures'. Given the wide range of schemes and the variations in rules governing them as they evolved, no attempt is made to give details of the different schemes. The aims are to identify the main shifts in policy and to address the principal methodological and empirical issues which arise in attempting to evaluate policy.The main focus of the paper is on those measures which have been designed to increase employment without threatening the attempts by successive governments first to restrain the growth of public expenditure and then to reduce the level in real terms. The mainstream macroeconomic and labour market strategy continues to stress the need for fiscal and monetary restraint combined with much greater labour market flexibility.Whilst the paper is concerned with employment measures, the Youth Training Scheme is also included. It represents the biggest of all the programmes initiated during the last decade or so of policy intervention and is concerned with providing employment as well as training opportunities.