What works and for whom? An overview of employment instruments among vulnerable groups in the Nordics

The Nordic Council of Ministers wants to improve the employment prospects of vulnerable groups in the labour market and has therefore commissioned the project Toward a More Inclusive Labour Market in the Nordics to provide policymakers and practitioners with evidence-based guidance and cross-Nordic inspiration.

This report is the fourth in the project and aims to summarise the academic literature on various employment instruments and their effectiveness for different groups of vulnerable individuals. Additionally, it includes caseworkers' perspectives on the effectiveness of these employment instruments.

The key conconclusions from the report are:

• Vulnerable individuals face a complex set of employment barriers, meaning that no one-size-fits-all solution exists. This highlights the difficulty in selecting the right instrument for each case.
• The complex set of employment barriers can hinder the effectiveness of otherwise effective instruments, and a holistic approach to address employment barriers is therefore required to create lasting employment. Effective policy programs take into account the entire set of barriers and address the most critical ones in a sequence tailored to each individual.
• The majority of academic literature focuses on classic active labour market instruments. This reveals knowledge gaps in research on certain policy areas that are essential for increasing labour market participation among vulnerable groups.

Along with these conclusions, the report also contains detailed conclusions for each employment instrument, which are presented in the report.

This project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers and is conducted in partnership with VIVE - The Danish Center for Social Science Research.

You can read the fourth publication here: "What works and for whom? An overview of employment instruments among vulnerable groups in the Nordics "

The third publication can be found here: "A multitude of barriers - analysing components in joblessness to inform policy in the Nordic countries"

If you are interested the second publication can be found here: "Barriers to employment for vulnerable groups in the Nordic countries"

The first publication can be found here: "Labour market attachment in the Nordic countries"