Ulrich Hörning is the Head of Administrative Reform in Mannheim.
Huseyn Huseynov is an Advisor of the Department of Social Protection Policy in the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population, Azerbaijan.
Governments worldwide are increasingly exploring policies that will remove the constraints or disincentives for individuals to have access to jobs. One set of interventions are active labor market programs, which focus on employment services, training, and subsidies to employers to stimulate hiring. Governments are also looking at alternative activation strategies, which essentially reward those who search for jobs with benefit payments and support services. At a conference in Istanbul April 30-May 1 this year (sponsored by IZA/OECD/WB), about 120 researchers and policy makers from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa gathered to debate these policies.
In Part 1 of a three-part series, Ulrich Hörning, Head of Administrative Reform in Mannheim, describes how Germany’s labor reforms of 2003-05 tackled high unemployment and helped the nation cope with the 2008-2009 financial crisis. We also hear from Huseyn Huseynov, Advisor, Department of Social Protection Policy, Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population, Azerbaijan, who explains active jobs programs - including a self-support program – under way to further reduce the poverty level, which dropped dramatically over the past decade.
This post was first published on the Jobs Knowledge Platform.
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