Qualification and Re-Education for Unemployed

As quantitative surveys have shown, qualification and retraining seem to be very effective in principle as measures to combat individual unemployment, and this also in a longer-term perspective. However, success of active labour market policy requires that measures be geared to the situation and the development on the labour market. Since qualification and re-education courses as such hardly create new jobs, they are especially suited to combat structural unemployment. This is the case when certain economic sectors struggle with difficulties and employment loss while others continue to thrive and are in need of additional staff. In other words, if there are enough jobs as such but people seeking employment do not have the right skills, and there is thus a wide gap between the profiles of offer and demand. In such an economic situation, qualification and retraining will enable unemployed to get those qualifications which are required to fill the vacancies in the thriving sectors. However, if the economic situation is characterized by an overall low number of vacancies which will not suffice to provide employment for all those who are seeking employment (economic unemployment), qualification and re-education courses will not contribute to diminishing general unemployment.

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