Labour Market Policy

IAB research in this field focuses on the instruments and regulations of labour market policy. The focus is on their implementation, effects, and mechanisms of action. Special attention is paid to the effects on labour-market integration, employability, and social participation. The research programme includes job-counselling, support, and placement processes, as well as labour market policy support instruments such as vocational preparation measures, publicly funded employment, further vocational training, and integration assistance, and wage replacement benefits. The analyses take gender aspects, current social developments, and labour market policy reforms into account. They do not only consider benefit recipients or unemployed and employed persons as individuals but also to some extent take the family context into account.

The IAB also focuses on the actions of central stakeholders and their interactions. This includes Jobcentres, employment agencies, and their specialist staff, benefit recipients, providers of support measures, and employers. The studies are based on quantitative analyses of process- and survey data (non-experimental econometric impact analyses, field experiments) as well as qualitative analyses (non-standardised surveys, participant observations). While quantitative studies primarily determine the impact of various instruments, qualitative studies serve to explore the implementation of labour market policy and its mechanisms of action.