Institutional set-up of active labour market policy provision in OECD and EU countries

Abstract

This study provides a framework to compare and classify the institutional set-up of active labour market policy (ALMP) provision across countries, which is a key determinant of how well ALMP systems can respond to changing labour market needs, e.g. in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The paper builds on an OECD-EC questionnaire on “Active labour market policy measures to mitigate the rise in (long-term) unemployment” filled in by OECD and EU countries in the last quarter of 2020. The paper presents a dashboard of the institutional set-up of ALMP provision in 43 OECD and EU countries, which classifies the ALMP systems of different countries according to their organisational set-up (i.e. division of responsibilities between key stakeholders), their regulatory set-up (i.e. key legislation regulating ALMP provision) and their capacity to deliver employment support services (i.e. resources available).