Ludo Struyven

Design and redesign of a quasi-market for the reintegration of jobseekers: empirical evidence from Australia and the Netherlands

Some Western countries have linked their policy on reintegrating jobseekers to far-reaching changes in the design of the system. The most striking of these is the introduction of a market system by privatizing the implementing organizations and allowing them to compete with each other and other providers. Prototypes for this development are Australia, with its Job Network (introduced in 1998), and the Netherlands, which has a privatized reintegration market (2001). The aim in introducing these market systems is twofold: to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of implementation while increasing the responsiveness of the service providers and the freedom of choice of jobseekers. In this paper we analyse the conditions for and functioning of the market arrangements in both countries from the theoretical perspective of quasi-markets. This analysis shows that the results of the introduction of market forces have so far been relatively modest. The Australian case displays significant efficiency gains, but this was partly at the expense of quality. Problems with risk selection, such as ‘cherry picking’ and ‘parking’ (problems which also affect the public systems) have still not been adequately resolved. The principle of market forces places special demands on the design and organization of the specific market arrangements.

The Competitive Market for Employment Services in the Netherlands

OECD countries are increasingly interested in structuring government organisation and the financing of job brokerage and employment reintegration services to use market forces. In the Netherlands, the introduction of market mechanisms has been part of a search for a more coherent benefits and activation system. The former Public Employment Service has been split up into a basic employment service provider (Centre for Work and Income) which remains public, and a privatised reintegration services company, which competes with other commercial entities for contracts to promote return to work. Since a large number of municipalities are looking to buy employment services for their social assistance clients in the Netherlands, a quasi-market for reintegration services has emerged, with many purchasers and providers. However, the purchasers use a variety of tendering methods and parts of the market suffer from a lack of transparency. Following the outcome of a tender round held in 2000, in 2001 ... Les pays de l’OCDE s’interessent de plus en plus a des structures d’organisation gouvernementale et de financement des services de placement et de reintegration faisant appel a des mecanismes concurrentiels. Aux Pays-Bas, l’introduction de mecanismes de marche a fait partie de la recherche d’un systeme plus coherent de prestations et d’activation. L’ancien Service public de l’emploi s’est scinde en deux parties constituees d’une part d’un fournisseur de services d’emploi de base (Centre pour le travail et le revenu) qui reste public et d’autre part d’une societe privee de services de reintegration, en concurrence avec d’autres organismes commerciaux pour des contrats d’aide au retour a l’emploi. Etant donne qu’un grand nombre de municipalites au Pays-Bas cherchent a acheter des services pour leur beneficiaires d’aide sociale, un quasi-marche de services de reintegration s’est developpe, avec de nombreux acheteurs et fournisseurs. Toutefois, les acheteurs utilisent une large gamme ...