Public Employment Programs Research Articles

PARTICIPANTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE EXPANDED PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMME TO SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS

Public Employment Programmes (PEPs), which include the South African Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), are widely recognised as important social protection tools that address the challenges of persistent unemployment and dire poverty. PEPs offer a ‘win-win’ policy option by creating jobs while simultaneously generating assets and delivering services. In South Africa, the impact of PEPs has primarily been evaluated based on employment opportunities, thus creating a gap in the comprehensive assessment of their contribution to the broader livelihood of participants beyond job creation. To address this gap, a qualitative research method was employed, utilising a snowball sampling strategy and the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as the theoretical foundation for the investigation. The findings of this study underscore the positive contribution of the EPWP to the livelihoods of its participants. However, the study also uncovered various challenges confronting the programme, such as non-compliance with program regulations, such as payment below minimum wage rates and difficulties in meeting youth employment targets amidst escalating youth unemployment rates in South Africa. The research recommends introducing a national EPWP policy with enforcement mechanisms and youth-focused programmes while strengthening local institutions to provide services and processes to enhance the impact of these programs and create a conducive environment for beneficiaries to improve their livelihoods and escape poverty.

The Situation of Public Employment in Small Villages in Hungary

The author started to deal with the public employment programme as an instrument of active employment policy in Hungary in the last 9 years. She perceived that the people living in disadvantaged settlements have limited labour market opportunities. In this research, the focus will be on small villages with less than 500 inhabitants in Hungary. In these settlements, the municipality is very often the only employer and there are almost no job opportunities available other than public employment. In small villages, the distorted demographic age structure, low educational attainment, low-income levels, inadequate infrastructure, physical distance from the cities, multi-generational unemployment, and often a high proportion of Roma inhabitants, make an already difficult and peripheral situation and employment difficult. The paper aims to analyse public employment programmes at a deeper level according to their role in the development of small villages and to identify good practices and successful public employment programmes in social cooperatives implemented by municipalities. The results of a questionnaire survey on the use of public employment will be presented as a commonly used employment solution in peripheral areas.

The perspective of developing new forms a Russian pensioner’s employment

The article focuses on the directions and current barriers for including Russian pensioners in new forms of employment. Radical transformations of labour in the post-industrial economy with the accompanying process of “new demographic transition” require modernization of existing approaches and programmes to organize work activities in elderly age groups. In order to effectively address these challenges, it is necessary to solve a series of conceptual issues in defining new forms of employment, that make it difficult to measure the scale of their spread, to develop assistance programmes that lead to bias regulation of emerging new models of employment. The dominant organizational, technological and legal approaches should be integrated with sociological diagnostics and examination of the transformation processes.Based on the results of sociological survey of Russian pensioners (2022), current statistical data and results of research centers (VCIOM, FOM, SuperJob, HeadHunter) the attitude and availability of Russian pensioners to remote work and self-employment are revealed. The article substantiates the need for a differentiated approach to the development of programmes to support new forms of employment for the elderly people (public and company employment programmes) based on the systemic analysis of pensioners’ and pre-retirees’ perception of changes in their social and employment status, taking into account a variety of individual characteristics (age, gender, etc.), local socio-economic conditions (place of residence) and life situations. Based on the analysis of remote employment and self-employment, it is justified that the development of new forms will allow pensioners to form more diverse life and work trajectories that meet their interests.

General Equilibrium Effects of (Improving) Public Employment Programs: Experimental Evidence From India

Public employment programs may affect poverty both directly through the income they provide and indirectly through general equilibrium effects. We estimate both effects, exploiting a reform that improved the implementation of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and whose rollout was randomized at a large (sub‐district) scale. The reform raised beneficiary households' earnings by 14%, and reduced poverty by 26%. Importantly, 86% of income gains came from non‐program earnings, driven by higher private‐sector (real) wages and employment. This pattern appears to reflect imperfectly competitive labor markets more than productivity gains: worker's reservation wages increased, land returns fell, and employment gains were higher in villages with more concentrated landholdings. Non‐agricultural enterprise counts and employment grew rapidly despite higher wages, consistent with a role for local demand in structural transformation. These results suggest that public employment programs can effectively reduce poverty in developing countries, and may also improve economic efficiency.

Which Active Labor Market Policies Work for Male Refugees? Evidence from Germany

AbstractIn this paper, we estimate the causal effects of a set of active labor market programs for male unemployed refugees on welfare who entered Germany between, 2013 and September, 2016. Using rich administrative data, we employ covariate balancing propensity scores combined with inverse probability weighting to estimate effects up to 33 months after the start of treatment. Our results show that relatively short-term training in the form of Schemes by Providers and In-Firm Training, as well as longer-term Further Vocational Training programs have a positive impact on both the employment chances as well as labor market earnings of refugees in the medium run. So-called “One Euro Jobs”, a public employment program, does not yield positive effects on employment or earnings. Sensitivity analyses confirm that our results are unlikely to be driven by unobserved confounding.

The welfare effects of India’s rural employment guarantee

We assess the welfare effects of India’s workfare program NREGA using a novel, almost sharp regression discontinuity design. We find large seasonal consumption increases in states implementing the program intensely, which are a multiple of the direct income gains. We also find increases in adolescents’ schooling. Our results imply substantial beneficial indirect effects of this large welfare program. We conclude that public employment programs hold significant potential for reducing poverty and insuring households against various adverse implications of seasonal income shortfalls — when properly implemented.

Impact Assessment on Attainment of Social Status by MGNREGA Beneficiaries in Tamil Nadu

More than 60 per cent of total workforce in the country derives their livelihood from agriculture and high dependency on agriculture has caused decrease in per capita household income from farm sector and mechanization in agricultural production has resulted in lesser employment in the rural areas and causes poverty among the rural masses. MGNREGA is regarded as the largest public employment programme in the world, assures 100 days of work per year to all rural households. A sample size of 200 Beneficiaries with 40 Beneficiaries from each village was selected for the study. In Salem district Panamarathupatty block were purposively selected. The weighted mean score were analysed for each component and ranked based on the weighted mean scores. The results of overall attainment of social status of beneficiaries, shows that in personal status two-fifth of the beneficiaries (40.00 per cent) had high level followed by 35.50 per cent had medium level and one-fourth of the beneficiaries (24.50 per cent) had low level of attainment in personal status. In economic status majority of the beneficiaries (88.50 per cent) falls on medium to high level. The most of the beneficiaries (76.00 per cent) in the study area attained medium to high level of societal status in the society, the MGNREGA beneficiaries participate more in the panchayat programmes, discussion on new projects and planning of welfare activities in the panchayat. The scheme has a positive impact on the livelihood of wage labourers in the rural areas and it improves the socio-economic status of the unskilled workers in the village and also contributed to the non- migration of village unskilled workers to urban areas. The MGNREGA has made tangible impact on the livelihood of the people and empowered women to a large extend.

Social workplaces in the public employment program: performance factors and methods for improvement

Regulation of the level of employment through targeted programs is a current task of public administration, aimed at ensuring a sustainable social effect for the applicant in the form of employment. The purpose of the article is to identify objective and subjective factors influencing the final results of the project "Social workplaces". The research methodology is based on a sociological survey of 206 respondents one year after leaving the project. The results were processed by the method of structural modeling in the PLS-PM program. This method allows the evaluation of complex causal patterns with hidden variables that are significant but not observable. The results showed that the factors of an employee’s competitiveness influence their current labor contract two times stronger than the factors of the project. There is correctly selected interdependence of events revealed that the passive motivation of the participant at the start changes if the trajectory of participation. and is achieved in a sustainable social effect.

ACTIVE POLICIES AT THE EUROPEAN LABOUR MARKET DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown European economies that they need a clear plan for the future with a focus on labour market needs. The crisis has significantly affected certain groups of the population and employers in specific types of sectors. The existence of a flexible system of active employment policies and the possibility for the implementation of innovative projects and measures is a prerequisite for successful assistance to the most affected persons and enterprises. The paper presents good practices and successful approaches in the pandemic situation, examines innovations of public employment services and programs for active support of employed and unemployed people in the EU.

An Analysis of the Effects of Public Investment on Labor Demand through the Channel of Economic Growth with a Focus on Socio-Professional Categories and Gender

The paper aims to analyze the impact of public investments generated by implementing the Emerging Senegal Plan (ESP) on economic growth and gender inequalities observed in the labor market in Senegal. A dynamic computable general equilibrium modeling was carried out for this purpose using a social accounting matrix (SAM) based on an extensive segmentation of the labor market according to gender and socio-professional category. The results prove that the investments made in priority market sectors led, overall, to a good trajectory of economic growth. Moreover, job creation followed the expansion of sectors of the economy, which increased their demand for labor because of the capital increase. In conclusion, there is a strong demand for qualified women (senior executives and middle executives). We recommend considering positive discrimination in favor of women by implementing public employment programs and the importance of recovery sectors affected by the pandemic.

МІЖНАРОДНИЙ ДОСВІД ТА КРАЩІ ПРАКТИКИ РЕГУЛЮВАННЯ НЕСТАНДАРТНОЇ ЗАЙНЯТОСТІ

The article considers the regulation of non-standard employment in foreign countries. It is established that the International Labor Organization recognizes that labor can be organized on a different contractual basis. The task is not to standardize all forms of work, but to make any work worthy. In industrialized countries, non-standard forms of employment predominate in almost all industries and especially among low-paid occupations. In developing countries, such employment sometimes continues to account for a significant share of employment, but there has been a recent increase in non-standard forms of employment in those sectors that were previously characterized by standard forms of employment. The most common categories of the population working in the field of non-standard employment are women, youth and migrants. It is substantiated that the regulation of non-standard employment requires the following areas: 1) elimination of gaps in the legislation on non-standard employment; 2) strengthening collective bargaining systems; 3) improving social protection; 4) socio-economic policy to regulate social risks and facilitate the transition to standard employment. The analysis of legislative measures relates to the following areas, designed to address existing gaps in legislation on non-standard forms of employment. The purpose of such measures is to align the various guarantees provided to workers in non-standard forms of employment with those provided to workers in standard forms. Collective agreements can be made taking into account the specific situation in the economy or in the enterprise, so they can be used to overcome the shortage of decent work in non-standard forms of employment. The social protection system needs to be improved to ensure that all workers have the necessary level of social protection. In addition to the risk of unemployment, workers also face the risk of losing income due to changes in earning opportunities related to the need to provide care for family members or loss of skills. At the macroeconomic level, policies need to be developed that directly support full productive employment, including the development of public employment programs if the need arises.

Agricultural productivity and deforestation: Evidence from input subsidies and ethnic favoritism in Malawi

This paper studies the underlying relationship between agricultural productivity and deforestation by analyzing the impacts of a large fertilizer and seed subsidy program in Malawi. In the absence of well-defined subsidy eligibility criteria, we demonstrate that areas with a high proportion of individuals of the same ethnicity as the president received more subsidized fertilizer and deforested less compared to areas with other predominant ethnicities. We provide evidence that subsidized fertilizer increased yields and reduced pressure to expand agriculture and that the findings are not confounded by increases in public sector employment or other public assistance programs. The results suggest that policies aimed at increasing small-scale agricultural productivity may have positive environmental spillovers.

Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India

Abstract Can public interventions persistently reduce conflict? Adverse weather shocks, through their impact on incomes, have been identified as robust drivers of conflict in many contexts. An effective social insurance system moderates the impact of adverse shocks on household incomes, and hence, could attenuate the link between these shocks and conflict. This paper shows that a public employment program in India, by providing an alternative source of income through a guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages, effectively provides insurance. This has an indirect pacifying effect. By weakening the link between productivity shocks and incomes, the program uncouples productivity shocks from conflict, leading persistently lower conflict levels.

ROLE OF MGNREGA PROGRAMME IN DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN KARNATAKA: EMERGING ISSUES AND EVIDENCE

Agriculture is the one of the most important sectors in our economy as well as country. Most of the peoples have depended on agriculture works. Nowadays, agriculture contribution of towards GSDP has been continuously declined from 28.1 per cent in 1999-2000 to 14.7per cent in 2014-15. The MGNREGA has become a world largest public wage employment programme. This scheme is also tool for inclusive growth and sustains agriculture. The present study explores the role of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme in Development of Agriculture in Karnataka: Emerging Issues and Evidence. The study is mainly based on secondary data sources. The data has been taken from the year 2013-14 to 2018-19. In this study intended to know the agro-climatic zonal level MGNREGA towards contribution of agriculture development works and expenditure and also to know the status of agriculture productivity in terms of total area under cultivation, cropping intensity, irrigation intensity and food grain production and wage rate in Karnataka. As compared to the other years, the study found that in the year 2016-17 all category works and all zones has better performed and most of the works and utilization of fund have done in arid and coastal zone in Karnataka. As compared to the after MGNREGS implementation, on an average there has been increased total area under cultivation (124.39 in lakh, ha), cropping intensity (122.81 per cent), irrigation intensity (32.28 per cent) and food grains (117.53lakh tonnes). but drastically low in before MGNREGS implementation in Karnataka. Gender difference in agriculture field labour has been declined from 8 rupees in 2005-06 to 4 rupees in 2009-10, then it was increased from 5 rupees in 2010-11 to 44 rupees in 2014-15, it means high gender difference in agriculture wage rate. But MGNREGA it provides equal wage for male and female in rural Karnataka and India and also intervention of MGNREGS has to be hike agriculture wage rate. Therefore, the study suggests distribute equal expenditure on natural resource management works, water related and plantation works and to suitable steps towards timely work completion and convergence of MGNREGA with development programmes is should be ensured in respective all zones in Karnataka and India. To focus on productive assets and land development works for especially SCs/STs and small and marginal farmers should be given more priority and should be made to provide full 100 days employment to these households. KEY WORDS: MGNREGA, Utilization of Fund, Agriculture, Wage rate and Employment.

Indian Farm Wages: Trends, Growth Drivers and Linkages with Food Prices

This study looks at trends in Indian farm wages, analyses their linkage with food prices, and identifies factors which drove their growth in real terms. We employ quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques for this purpose. A vector-error correction model (VECM) is used to determine the linkage between farm wage inflation and food inflation, and a pooled mean group (PMG) estimation method, used for dynamic heterogeneous panels, is used to identify the drivers of growth in real farm wages. In last 20 years (1998-99 to 2017-18), wages of India’s farm labourers increased at an average annual rate of 9.3 per cent in nominal and 3.2 per cent in real terms. For an average agricultural labourer, the daily wage rates increased from less than INR 45 in 1998-99 to about INR 229 in 2017-18. In real terms (2004-05 prices), this increase was from INR 50 to about INR 90 per day. The empirical analysis of the monthly wage time series identified a structural break in January 2007. Specifically, the curve is near-flat before this break-point subsequent which it rises sharply. On the relation between food inflation and wage growth, evidence was found of a food-wage spiral where changes in food prices and farm wages were estimated to impact each other. However, the impact of food inflation emerged to be stronger on wages than vice-versa and this impact was observed to strengthen post 2007-08. The panel study (1987-88 to 2015-16) on the drivers of real wage growth was conducted around the January 2007 structural break. Before this break, growth in real wages was estimated to be mostly driven by growth in the agriculture sector. Any influence of non-agricultural sectors (manufacturing and construction) did not emerge significant during this period. However, post the break, the growth witnessed in both- non-agricultural (manufacturing and construction sectors) and agricultural sectors explained the sharp increases in real farm wages. The large public rural employment program, MGNREGA (introduced in 2005) was identified as a third potential force of influence on rural wages; however, among other significant factors, its contribution to farm wage growth was estimated to be low and with a lag. Policy implications based on these findings are that for faster growth in real farm wages, focus needs to be on augmenting labour productivity in agriculture. In order to pursue that, one needs to lead reforms in agriculture that can accelerate agri-GDP growth and ensure that the rest of the economy, especially the manufacturing and construction sector, grow much faster pulling labour out from the agricultural sector to higher productivity jobs in manufacturing, construction, and possibly also services.

Employer Of Last Resort As A Public Employment Program To Reduce Unemployment

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Hyman Minsky'nin hükümetler tarafından fiyat istikrarı altında tam istihdama nasıl ulaşılabileceğine dair bir heterodoks politika önerisi olan devletin nihai işveren olma politikasını değerlendirmek ve bu yaklaşımın avantajlarını ve dezavantajlarını kavrayabilmek için temel teorik çerçevede tartışmaktır. Program, hükümet tarafından finanse edilen ve iş arayan, ancak iş bulamayan ve kamu sektörü projelerinde çalışmaya hazır olan tüm işsizleri ise alarak sıfır işsizlik elde etmeyi amaçlayan bir kamu istihdam politikasıdır. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma, programın etkilerini analiz etmek için kavramsal bakış açısının kısa bir analizi ile başlamaktadır ve bunu daha sonra bu programın sabit fiyat kuralı üzerinde çalışan bir tampon stok mekanizması olarak nasıl çalıştığı üzerine odaklanan bir analiz izleyecektir. Bu tür bir politika özellikle Türkiye gibi işgücünün çoğunluğunun gayri resmi sektörlerde sosyal güvence olmaksızın çalışmak zorunda kaldığı ülkeler için kritik öneme sahiptir zira etkin bir nihai işveren programı altında çalışmanın sosyal yardım ve güvenliğe katkı sağlayacağından ve yoksul kesim açısından işgücü piyasalarının etkinliğini arttıracağından şüphe yoktur.

Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation: Evidence from Input Subsidies and Ethnic Favoritism in Malawi

This paper studies the underlying relationship between agricultural productivity and deforestation by analyzing the impacts of a large fertilizer and seed subsidy program in Malawi. In the absence of well-defined subsidy eligibility criteria, we demonstrate that areas with a high proportion of individuals of the same ethnicity as the president received more subsidized fertilizer and deforested less compared to areas with other predominant ethnicities. We provide evidence that subsidized fertilizer increased yields and reduced pressure to expand agriculture and that the findings are not confounded by increases in public sector employment or other public assistance programs. The results suggest that policies aimed at increasing small-scale agricultural productivity may have positive environmental spillovers.

The Political Economy of Hunger

Sen’s essay concerns the existence of extensive hunger amidst unprecedented global prosperity in the contemporary world, but he argues that the problem would be decisively solvable if our response were no longer shaped by Malthusian pessimism. Effective famine prevention does not turn on food supply per head and the automatic mechanism of the market: there can be plenty of food while large sections of the population lack the means to obtain it. Effective famine prevention thus requires “entitlements.” Economically, governments can and should provide public employment programs so that those threatened by famine can be empowered to command food. Politically, democratic participation and a free press can work to ensure government accountability for famine prevention. The choice that Sen urges, however, is not for the state over the market—the experience of the Indian state of Kerala demonstrates that a voluntaristic approach can work as well or better than China’s compulsory “one child policy” in limiting the rapid population growth that contributes to world hunger. Rather, a reasoned solution to the problem of hunger must acknowledge the complementary importance of both well-functioning markets and open and democratic public action.

History of the Creation of Hungary’s Unified Public Employment Program and Its Main Characteristics

<p><em>A previous system of community service in the public interest was replaced in 2011 in Hungary with a “public employment” system, in which the government temporarily employs disadvantaged, unemployed people who are healthy and able to work and who are within the age limits for working, but who, for whatever reason, have not had a stable workplace and have therefore relied on government subsidies, such as welfare without employment. Under the new program, these citizens have been gainfully employed by the government for a set period of time. The goal of public employment is to give a path for those workers who have been unemployed for a long time, and are disadvantaged in some way, to re-enter (or enter) the private job market. Workers are employed under favorable, </em><em>“</em><em>sheltered” conditions, however ones that begin to approach the conditions they can expect in the private market. All this helps the employed workers to improve their employability, as well as to maintain and improve their work skills. Today, the public employment system is not targeted primarily at those with severe disabilities. However, the regulations which establish this program do name members of this group as a target for the program, if they are currently undergoing rehabilitation.</em></p>

Increasing the Minimum Wage with the State as Employer of Last Resort: A “Predistribution” Proposal for Mexico

Mexico is a country of extreme inequality where opposition from politico-economic elites has prevented implementation of redistributive policies that Nicholas Kaldor suggested half a century ago as a means of funding increased social spending and making the tax system more progressive. In this article, we recommend less-conventional means of reducing inequality. Rather than waiting for production to increase, after which government would intervene through taxes and transfers (redistributive policies), we propose that the functioning of the labor market be modified in ways that will distribute the fruits of economic activity more equitably (predistributive policies). Specifically, we propose an increase in the minimum wage, made effective by a public employment program. This proposal, made within the framework of Lerner’s functional-finance theory, follows the recommendations of Keynes and Minsky.