10
Lena Jacobi and Jochen Kluve
tablished results-based accountability and controlling of local employment
agencies. Now, each employment agency has to fulfil quantitative goals which
are individually fitted to each type of agency, while at the same time having a
wider scope of discretion on the choice of policy mix. The formerly hierar-
chically organised employment offices were converted into costumer-ori-
entated one-stop-centres. The range of services provided by the jobcentres has
been extended, ranging from advising and counselling services to social
services and administration of benefit payments. The caseload of caseworkers
is targeted to be reduced and every jobseeker is assigned to a fixed case-
worker.
A second aspect regards quasi markets: The introduction of market forces is
expected to improve the quality of services and to break up the informal and
often inefficient insider relationships between public employment man-
agement and private providers. The reform introduced, for instance, voucher
systems for placement services and training measures. Each individual whom
the public employment service was unable to place after six weeks of unem-
ployment can choose an alternative private placement service. The private
service receives a lump sum payment after having placed the jobseeker suc-
cessfully. Providers of training measures, too, can be chosen freely by the client
and paid for with a voucher.
The public employment service can choose to outsource services fully or partly,
most importantly placement services. Public tendering became compulsory
for external contracts. One example is the placement via temporary work:
Since 2003, every local employment office sets up a “Staff Service Agency”
(Personal Service Agentur, PSA) that acts like a temporary work agency for
the unemployed. To this end, the local employment office either may contract
a private temporary work agency or, if no provider is available, may run aPSA
by itself. The local employment office may delegate hard-to-place clients to
the PSA, which in turn receives a lump sum fee for each worker. The PSA may
lend the worker temporarily to other firms or provide a permanent placement.
During periods of inactivity, the PSA should provide training measures to the
worker. Therefore, PSAs encompass aspects of both training measures and job
search assistance.
Third, the reform aims at improving the targeting of active measures and the
allocation of measures and resources. To this end, statutory regulation of eligi-
bility conditions is reduced, now leaving a wider scope for individually fitting
clients to measures. Assignment of clients to measures is now based on a pro-
filing process, which is highly standardised. The caseworker will assess the
client’s abilities, problems, and potential labour market chances in an in-
terview and thereafter assign the client to one out of four types: “Market
clients” (Marktkunden) are considered to have the highest chances of finding