Assessing youth labour market services: Young people’s perceptions and evaluations of service delivery in Germany
| Author | Jennifer Shore,Jale Tosun |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076717722192 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Public Policy and Administration
2019, Vol. 34(1) 22–41
Assessing youth labour
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market services: Young
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076717722192
people’s perceptions and
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evaluations of service
delivery in Germany
Jennifer Shore and Jale Tosun
Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Germany
Abstract
While youth unemployment is a widely studied topic, many accounts fail to take into
consideration young adults’ experiences with and perceptions of the public services
they make use of. Young people’s perceptions of the services they use are closely linked
to a variety of behaviours such as noncompliance, early withdrawal or non-take-up, all of
which can hinder the (re-)entry to the labour market. How young people evaluate their
interactions with employment services can even have impacts on societal and political
attitudes; as for many young people, these experiences represent their first interactions
with the state. In this study, we draw on unique survey data to offer insights into young
adults’ evaluations and experiences with public employment services in Germany and
discuss them in light of the structure and organizational capacity of public employment
services to deliver the programmes and services that young adults need. By placing the
analytical focus on young people’s evaluations, we argue that although Germany is often
highlighted as a highly successful case in terms of youth labour market outcomes; there
is nevertheless ample room for improvement in terms of how young people assess the
offerings and personal experiences with public employment services.
Keywords
Front office, Germany, public employment services, survey, youth unemployment
Corresponding author:
Jale Tosun, Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Bergheimer Straße 58, 69115 Heidelberg,
Germany.
Email: jale.tosun@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de
Shore and Tosun
23
Introduction
Youth unemployment has many undesirable economic, social and political
consequences for individuals and societies. Being unemployed is associated with
a multitude of economic challenges, a general lack of social support and often
leaves young people feeling ashamed of their situation as well as more vulnerable
to physical and mental health problems (e.g., Brandt and Hank, 2014; Reneflot and
Evensen, 2014; Vancea and Utzet, 2017). Moreover, experiencing unemployment at
a young age increases the chances of periods of unemployment at a later age as well
as depresses future wages (Gangl, 2006; Gregg, 2001). The determinants of young
people’s labour market participation, both at the individual (e.g., education, skills,
social background) and at the institutional level (e.g., the design of educational
systems, welfare state structures, labour market institutions, the alignment of
labour market needs and educational outcomes) have been widely researched
(Cinalli and Giugni, 2013; Isengard, 2003). What these accounts often however
fail to consider in analysing youth employment are young adults’ experiences
with and perceptions of the public services they make use of. In this study, we
draw on a unique dataset to offer insights into young adults’ evaluations and
experiences with public employment services (PES) in Germany and discuss them
in light of the structure and organizational capacity of PES to deliver the pro-
grammes and services young adults need. By placing the analytical focus on young
people’s evaluations, we argue that although Germany is often highlighted as a
highly successful case in terms of youth labour market outcomes, there is never-
theless ample room for improvement.
While the economic and financial crisis has reinforced the occupational and
social dualization of labour markets (Heidenreich, 2015; more generally on the
crisis, Dunlop and Radaelli, 2016; Tosun et al., 2014), it has also provided an
opportunity to address the issue of youth unemployment at the European level
(Lahusen et al., 2013). Recognizing the potential gains both for individuals and
societies overall, the European Parliament and the European Council decided in
May 2014 that PES in the EU member states shall cooperate in an attempt to
promote and share best practices (Hall et al., 2015). The European Commission
(2012: 5) has thereby assigned PES a key role in bringing young people into
employment. The greater importance assigned to the PES is reflected in the body
of research that examines this specific public organization (see, e.g., Fuertes et al.,
2014; Tosun, 2017; Weishaupt, 2010; Zimmermann et al., 2014). But while much
attention has been placed on the EU’s role in combatting youth unemployment and
the implementation of the Youth Guarantees in the Member States, far less atten-
tion has been given to the evaluations and experiences of the target group of ser-
vices offered by PES – namely, the young people themselves. In other words, in
addition to the design and organization of youth labour market services, we should
also examine young people’s perceptions of the services they use, as they are closely
linked to a variety of behaviours such as non-compliance, early withdrawal or non-
take-up, all of which can hinder the (re-)entry to the labour market (Van Parys and
24
Public Policy and Administration 34(1)
Struyven, 2013). How young people evaluate their interactions with employment
services can even have impacts on societal and political attitudes (Andrews and
Jilke, 2016).
In this study, we therefore ask how young people perceive the role and the
quality of the support they have received from PES. We draw on survey data
from Germany, a country which stands out in terms of its comparatively very
low rates of youth unemployment. But as we will discuss in the sections to
follow, although the performance of German PES appears quite high when mea-
sured on the basis of youth unemployment rates, there is a notable gap in terms of
how young people view the provision of labour market services.
The remainder of this study is organized as follows. In the next section, we
briefly discuss the strengthened role PES across Europe have recently been given
as a response to the economic crisis and the resulting episode of youth
unemployment. We then turn to the users of PES themselves, and present
findings from a youth survey covering topics related to young people’s
unemployment experiences. To address the research question stated above, we
therefore make use of original survey data gathered in spring of 2016 on young
adults between the ages of 18 and 35 in Germany who are either presently or
have been previously unemployed (Tosun et al., 2017a). The findings of the
exploratory analyses are then discussed with a view to the organizational and
structural attributes of PES in Germany. We conclude with a brief discussion of
the main insights.
European approaches to youth unemployment
Although unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular have
proven themselves to be long-term challenges for many European societies, this
issue was only recently placed on the EU’s political agenda in the wake of the
economic crisis (Chabanet, 2014; Lahusen et al., 2013; O’Reilly et al., 2015). Not
officially endorsed by the European Council until June 2013, its flagship initiative,
the Youth Guarantee – which would ensure that all young people under 25 would
receive a quality offer of a job, continued education, an apprenticeship, or a
traineeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unem-
ployed (European Commission, 2015) – marked a major milestone for tackling
youth unemployment in Europe (Chabanet, 2014: 491).
The schemes covered by the Youth Guarantees in the member states, however,
tend to be more successful for young people who are closer to labour market entry
than for young people who have been unemployed for longer periods and/or who
grapple with numerous socio-economic disadvantages (Eurofound, 2012a, 2012b).
The EU’s Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) addresses the challenges associated
with the effectiveness of the Youth Guarantee programs and is equipped with a
budget of 6 billion Euros for the period 2014–2020. The YEI is intended to finance
employment measures in EU regions where with youth unemployment rates over
25% in the year 2012. Many countries have relied on funds from the YEI to
Shore and Tosun
25
improve and expand outreach programmes for NEETs, an arguably hard to reach
group of young people (Tosun, 2017).
Across Europe, one of the main challenges of bringing NEETs and the young
unemployed into employment has to do with their underuse of activation pro-
grammes. Van Parys and Struyven (2013: 465) refer to challenges at both the indi-
vidual and organization (i.e., PES) level as ‘‘two side of the same coin’’. For example,
understaffed PES, too high of caseloads for individual counsellors, and a lack of
autonomy to tailor offerings to fit young people’s individual needs are among the
challenges at the organizational level. In order for individuals to make use (and not
drop out) of PES programmes, young people must perceive that the service offerings
are indeed helpful and useful. The individual and organizational hurdles are thus
intertwined and exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship. Of these two perspec-
tives, we concentrate on user perceptions of PES programmes in this study.
User perceptions of public services
Not only have PES been entrusted with improving the futures of many young people,
but they are in...
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