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The Reach, Train and Employ (RTE) pilot project was designed with the goal of establishing a tested model supporting job security in the social services industry for people over fifty and at risk of long-term unemployment. It comprised delivery of the Certificate III in Individual Support (Ageing and Disability) alongside a suite of wrap around supports to assist students to; engage and complete the qualification; enhance their wellbeing; and find paid employment in the social services sector. The project ran from March 2020 to June 2021 and involved 37 individuals residing in the areas of Melton, Brimbank, and Bacchus Marsh. This Final Evaluation Report has been produced by the Workforce Innovation and Development Institute (WIDI). It presents key findings from the developmental and outcomes evaluation related to program logic activity and identified short, medium, and longer-term outcomes. It collected data from project participants (2 cohorts), teachers, course program managers, industry employers, consortium representatives, and from Project Steering Committee related documentation.

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Combining the rates of unemployed young people and underemployed young people, nearly a third (29.9 per cent) of young Australians are underutilised in the labour market. This underutilisation of young people in the labour force not only negatively impacts their mental health but further denies their ability to fully participate in society. The Youth Employment Study (YES) is the first study to do surveys with a large group of young people who are looking for work and might be accessing Australian employment programs. YES aims to work out what helps young people get jobs and stay in jobs that they enjoy. This paper was produced to support the YES. It is a snapshot reviewing the federal and state and territory government funded employment programs that young people aged 15 to 25 years can access at one point of time. It describes the inputs and program design of each program, and the discourses that have informed their policy solutions. Where possible, the paper also describes program outcomes, evidence from evaluations and the identified barriers to implementation. The paper also outlines the policy and program approaches implemented by state and territory governments to address youth unemployment, together with inputs, design and outcomes where available. However, because the public information for these is much more limited and the approaches are much more varied, the programs are presented in less detail.

'Employment programs' could include an element of accredited training, though most programs that focused on apprenticeships and traineeships as a pathway to employment were excluded. There are some exceptions in the state and territory section, since some governments' training and employment policies were so intertwined that they could not be distinguished as discrete approaches. The programs were categorised in three types according to active employment strategies as identified in existing literature - work first, human capital development, and human capabilities approaches. As many of the programs shared attributes from diverse active employment strategies, the categorisation process was based on a program design's most prominent feature. An existing typology of youth employment programs was also used to analyse the programs' components and their underlying problem formation ideologies - motivational, punishing, and bridging strategies.

The review found 16 large, multisite Australian Government funded employment programs. Six of these programs include mandatory participation and financial disciplinary approaches as part of their program design. The programs collectively cover Australia, though predominantly servicing metropolitan or regional areas. All programs are funded through a marketised approach, in which the Australian Government has contracted (competing) not-for-profit and private organisations to deliver the program on its behalf. Half of the reviewed programs are only open to, or prioritise, jobseekers receiving government income support. Twelve of the reviewed initiatives target specific cohorts, including people with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, migrants, and people at risk of long-term unemployment or 'welfare dependence'. Six programs solely target young people or include young people as a key target cohort. The Australian Government funds a complementary program which helps financially support eligible jobseekers with the costs associated with relocating for a job. It also provides wage subsidy incentives to employers to hire participants from employment programs. The employment offered by employers can be full-time, part-time, casual or in the form of an apprenticeship or traineeship. The wage subsidy program targets specific groups of jobseekers, including young people aged 15 to 24 years old. Ten evaluations of the national programs were found (two being for the same program). Of these evaluations, seven used exits from income support as an indicator for program effectiveness. Five measured sustainable employment outcomes (26-week employment outcomes or more).

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Since the establishment of Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) in 2012, the number of workers from Vanuatu has increased significantly from 119 to 1533.1 It has been established that labour mobility improves livelihoods (Bailey 2014; Bedford 2013; Gibson and McKenzie 2014). This is evident throughout villages and towns in Vanuatu, and is the reason thousands of ni-Vanuatu apply for the SWP every year. Using evidence-based research of ni-Vanuatu workers in the SWP, this paper argues that this strategic policy of encouraging development for Pacific island nations is effective, and, most significantly, that participating in labour migration provides workers with new avenues of social mobility.

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This paper exploits area based piloting and age-related eligibility rules to identify treatment effects of a labor market program – the New Deal for Young People in the UK. A central focus is on substitution/displacement effects and on equilibrium wage effects. The program includes extensive job assistance and wage subsidies to employers. [The authors] find that the initial impact of the program significantly raised transitions to unsubsidized employment by about five percentage points. The impact is robust to a wide variety of non-experimental estimators. However [the authors] present some evidence that this effect may not be as large in the longer run.

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With the rapid growth of automation and technological advancement, the skills and competencies required across British Columbia's (BC) economic development regions are evolving. As the province shifts towards a more digital, knowledge-based economy, it is important to consider the development of BC's labour force. While there are a number of initiatives targeting the next generation of workers, few supports sufficiently address the needs of mid-career workers in medium-skill occupations, who are more likely to experience challenges in adapting to changing job requirements. The purpose of this study is to determine the role the provincial government can play in building labour market resilience among this group. Using a case-study analysis as the primary research methodology, this study evaluates public employment supports in Ontario, Quebec and Australia to identify policy options that may aid in streamlining job-transitions in BC.

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The Japanese labour market is characterised by high employment rates for men and older workers, and a low unemployment rate. Over the past two decades, female participation has risen, while disparities in the labour market conditions of workers have grown. Further efforts are needed to promote increases in female and older-worker employment rates so as to combat the trend decline in the working-age population, and to reduce dualism in the labour market. Show less

In this paper we estimate, for the 1989-93 period in Belgium, the effect of vocational classroom training on the rate of transition from unemployment. We propose a ‘control function’ estimator accounting for variable treatment effects. In the absence of interaction effects between explanatory variables, this estimator identifies treatment effects free from selection bias. A natural experiment induces exogenous sub-regional variation in the training supply. This provides over-identifying restrictions that cannot be rejected. During participation, the transition rate decreases by 23% to 30%. Afterwards it increases by 47% to 73%. Making training available for a broader population would, however, reduce the effectiveness of the program.

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This chapter focuses on the Wallaga Lake Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) on the far south coast of New South Wales (NSW). The presence of CDEP in regional and urban areas might already seem like ancient policy history, having been phased out by the end of 2009. But these regional and urban schemes existed for nearly 20 of CDEP's 38 years. Being closer to established labour markets, they were also subject to the most strident and protracted criticism that they were 'failing employment programs' for otherwise unemployed jobseekers who should have been transitioned into other jobs. Such criticism helps explain why these CDEPs were closed much earlier, and much more suddenly, than the schemes in more remote locations.

Taking a political economy perspective, the author argues that defining CDEP as 'just an employment program' was much too narrow. In contributing to the sudden closure of the Wallaga Lake CDEP scheme, this definition was extremely counter-productive for the welfare and well-being of local residents. She shows that CDEP did support employment and economic development on the NSW south coast - especially by subsidising small commercial and social enterprises - but also notes its broader social and community development functions that improved a range of hard-to-measure outcomes. The author makes the case that these social and community development functions were not peripheral to job outcomes but central to addressing some of the significant barriers to mainstream work. While CDEP in the region is now long gone, many of these barriers to mainstream employment remain. As a consequence, many former CDEP participants have joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed or given up looking for work altogether. The author argues that the lessons from CDEP's closure remain as pertinent as ever, with mainstream employment services and providers failing to substantially improve outcomes and new strategies needed if governments are serious about improving either employment rates or livelihoods for Koori residents of the region.

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This study provides a critical assessment of various fiscal policy instruments - including direct public job creation, active labour market and care policies, social protection measures and tax reforms - and their effectiveness in supporting the most vulnerable groups in the labour market. Although much of the literature has focused on the quantitative effects of fiscal policy, this article concentrates on the qualitative aspects and examines the role of fiscal instruments in achieving a more inclusive and fair labour market. Our review shows that the empirical literature tends to overemphasise the capacity of individual policies to mitigate inequalities, neglecting the complex interdependencies among various mechanisms and policies in place. We argue, instead, that a systematic approach is necessary to ensure equitable access to good jobs and to address the disparities between different labour market groups. We also identify significant research gaps, such as the need for longitudinal studies on the long-term policy impacts, an exploration of the regional disparities within the policy-inequality nexus and the sector-specific effects of fiscal measures, especially relevant in the context of the green and digital transition.

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Saint Lucia is a small island developing state centrally located in the archipelago that constitutes the Eastern Caribbean chain. This tropical island has a land mass of approximately 616 sq km and a population of roughly 172,000. Independent since 1979, the small open economy of Saint Lucia has a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected lower house of parliament, and a nominated upper house or senate. Historically, Saint Lucia's economic base has depended on the agricultural sector. Sugar cane, the first monocrop, was abandoned in the 1950s and replaced by bananas, which were exported to the United Kingdom, and provided over 80 per cent of the island's foreign exchange. The dominance of the banana industry was made possible through a preferential trading arrangement with the European Union, which was substantially removed by the year 2005. The removal of the preferential trading arrangement was not without its fair share of hardship and dislocation. In response to declining earnings from bananas, Saint Lucia's production capacity shifted to a complete reliance on the service sector, with particular emphasis on financial services and tourism. This new investment in tourism meant a concomitant investment in human resource development and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). It became patently evident that this new thrust into tourism would require a more well-rounded and skilled labour force, and that TVET would hold the responsibility for making a critical contribution to achieving this goal.

Saint Lucia's education and training system has made tremendous strides over the last two decades in embracing TVET as the medium for developing knowledge, skills and attitudes which are needed for productivity and sustainable economic development. The Education Act of 1999 made provision for the establishment of a ten-member Saint Lucia Council for TVET (SLCTVET) to coordinate TVET at all levels of the education system. Against this background, the SLCTVET noted the need for a comprehensive review of the TVET policy environment in order to identify gaps and policy considerations to inform the development of a policy framework for TVET. The review was undertaken in response to an official request from Saint Lucia for assistance from UNESCO to undertake a TVET Policy Review towards the development of a national TVET Policy for Saint Lucia. The evidence and analysis presented in the policy review highlight a range of findings and policy considerations for the future, which have national, regional and global dimensions.

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