Emily Farchy: Faces of Joblessness. Esitys Kelan Mitä aktiivimallin jälkeen? Keinoja työllisyyden parantamiseen -seminaarissa 7.11.2019.

1. FACES OF JOBLESSNESS
A PEOPLE-CENTRED PERSPECTIVE ON
EMPLOYMENT BARRIERS AND POLICIES
Emily Farchy
Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs
7th November 2019, Helsinki

2. 2
Raising the employment rate
Where are we going?
Source: Statistics Finland
Unemployment rate
(15-64 unless otherwise stated) Index (2012 = 100)
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Total
Women
Northern and Eastern
Finland
Older (60 - 64)
Youth (15 - 24)
25 - 34
95
100
105
110
115
120
125
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

3. Faces of Joblessness
How will we get there?
Existing labour-market indicators …
Have no clear link with barriers to employment (eg standard age, sex, … breakdown)
Largely individual-based, little family context
Existing profiling systems ...
Generally not used for higher-level policy dialogue
May not capture circumstances relevant for key policy areas, eg. care, incentives
Miss big parts of jobless, eg. only registered unemployed
A people-centered approach to employment barriers can:
 Identify untapped sources of employment growth
 Understand why different approaches work (or not)
 Facilitate a cross-sectoral perspective on policy challenges
 Targeting & tailoring policy interventions
 Integrating services in a way that works for policy “clients”
 Consider priorities among competing challenges
 Move from general principles of what works, to conversation on specifics and
implementation 3

4. A people-centred, “bottom-up” approach
1
• Who are the disadvantaged groups?
 here: jobless + low-intensity / unstable employment
(household data: EU-SILC)
2
• What employment barriers do they face?
(i) capabilities, (ii) motivation, (iii) opportunities
3
• Which are the policy-relevant groups?
 individuals with similar sets of barriers
(statistical clustering method)
4
• What policy levers can tackle multiple barriers?
 are existing programmes accessible for those groups?
 are they well-aligned with their main barriers ?
Countrydialogue

5. 56
Who are the disadvantaged groups?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
No major difficulties Out of LM Weak labour market attachment
Unemploye
d
42%
Retired
15%
Unfit to
work
30%
Domestic
tasks
10%
Other
inactive
3%
63%
53%
11%
14%
26%
32%
Average of
seven
countries Ireland
Persistently out of work
Weak labour market attachment
No major difficulties
Retired
Unfit to
work
Other
inactive
Unemplo
Domestic
tasks
Restricted
hours
Near-zero
earnings
Unstable
jobs
 What are untapped sources of employment
growth?
 What is the scope for labour-market
integration policies?
18.7%
10.2%
Population with potential labour market difficulties
Percentage, 15-64
Source: OECD Calculations on the basis of EUSILC

6. What employment barriers do they face?
Data challenges and potential solutions
Adapted from Immervoll and Scarpetta, 2012
6

7. What employment barriers do they face?
7
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Care
responsibilities
Disability Limited education
and Skills
No recent work
experience
Has never
worked
High independent
income
High benefit
income
Lack of
opportunities
Capabilities Motivation Opportunities
Employment barriers
Percentage of target population
Source: OECD Calculations on the basis of EUSILC

8. Some Individuals Face Multiple Barriers…
8

9. Some Individuals Face Multiple Barriers…
9
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Individuals with no
difficulties
Individuals with
potential labour
market difficulties
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Source: OECD Calculations on the basis of EUSILC
Number of Labour Market Barriers
Population, 15-64

10. But which are the policy relevant groups?
10
activation &
employment
support policies
?
activation &
employment
support policies
4
31
2

11. Prime-age
men
Multiple
barriers
LTU
Working
poor
low skills,
work
disincentives
EST
Older inactive
poor health, skills,
experience
EST, LTU
Mothers
unskilled,
interrupted
career
EST, IRL
Discouraged
younger
adults
limited
experience
ITA
LM inactive
mothers
no past work
experience
ITA
LM inactive
mothers
has work
experience,
working partner
ITA, IRL
Income-
poor
parents
no past work
experience
IRL
Large number of distinct groups
11
 Are groups “on the radar” of activation &
employment-support policies ?
 Which groups are a priority for support ?
 Are policies aligned with their needs ?
 A need for coordination across policy domains?

12. What policy levers can tackle multiple barriers?
12

13.  Employment difficulties very different across countries & groups
 Large majority face multiple barriers
 Indicates different needs for support, even in demographically similar
population segments (“older workers”, “youth”, “mothers”). Traditional ways of
presenting LM statistics cannot capture this
 Existing programmes sometimes of right type but
 poor access,
 bottlenecks,
 coordination problems
Main findings so far
13

14. Barriers:
– What are the main barriers in Finland?
– Do some barriers frequently co-incide?
– Are there particular barriers that could benefit from further investigation? Fleshing out.
Activation:
– What is behind the success, or otherwise, of benefit conditionality?
– What hurdles must those facing multiple barriers overcome?
Services
– Are services able to address multiple barriers concurrently
– Are services easy to access in combination
Going forward
– How can we use the results of this work?
Questions
14

15. Contact: Herwig.Immervoll@oecd.org Emily.Farchy@oecd.org
Rodrigo.Fernandez@oecd.org Daniele.Pacifico@oecd.org
Links & further information:
www.oecd.org/social/faces-of-joblessness.htm
“Faces of joblessness in Australia: An anatomy of
employment barriers based on household data”,
OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper, forthcoming.
www.oecd.org/social/benefits-and-wages.htm
Connecting People with Jobs
Skills and Work
Investing in Youth
Ageing and Employment Policy
Displaced Workers
Mental Health and Work
Follow us: @OECD_Social
Faces of Joblessness

16. What employment barriers do they face?
Data challenges and potential solutions
Adapted from Immervoll and Scarpetta, 2012
16
1. Health: In the context of the high prevalence of mental health
problems in Finland - the highest in the OECD and the high rate of
incapacity benefit recipiency, one option would be to explore, in detail,
the extent to which health concerns interact with other barriers to limit
full labour market participation.
Future work? Supplement the SILC health records with
admin data, for example, drugs prescribed for severe illnesses and
mental health issues, or hospitalization spells.
2. Linguistic barriers/ unrecognized qualifications: A large degree of
heterogeneity among Finlands migrant populations is masked in
aggregated figures. FOJ could offer insight on the hurdles facing
disparate populations and whether these combinations of barriers are
unique to migrants, or are shared with other native born Finns.
Future work? Supplement SILC with admin data such as
language level, participation in language training, or, country of origin
(to calculate linguistic distance)

17. What employment barriers do they face?
Adapted from Immervoll and Scarpetta, 2012
17
3. Isolation: When individuals live far from labour markets this can
make it a challenge to find work within a commutable area.
Future work? Construct an index with individual level
variation capturing isolation. To include transport / public transport costs,
access to services, commuting distances, home ownership?
4. Local labour demand: When labour demand in the relevant segment
is limited, workers may struggle to find a job.
Future work? Local level vacancy rates? By industry?
Employer-employee data to extract vacancy rate, data on industry of
previous employment