Institutional and financial framework for job rotation in nine European countries

Abstract

Jobrotation als wichtiges Element der Arbeitsmarktpolitik hat in den meisten Mitgliedsländern der Europäischen Union, mit Ausnahme der skandinavischen Länder, eine kurze Tradition. Erst Ende 1995 wurde die transnationale Partnerschaft "Jobrotation" auf europäischer Ebene angeregt und Projektfinanzierung hauptsächlich durch die Gemeinschaftsinitiative ADAPT, aber auch aus den europäischen Strukturfonds ermöglicht. Jobrotation bezeichnet dabei die Verbindung von Weiterbildung für Beschäftigte und Stellvertretung durch zuvor Arbeitslose. In den nichtskandinavischen Ländern der EU wurden daraufhin eine Vielzahl an lokalen Initiativen gestartet, die unter sehr heterogenen institutionellen und finanziellen Rahmenbedingungen ihre Arbeit aufnahmen. Da aus diesen Gründen ein rein quantitativer Vergleich der Ergebnisse der Einzelprojekte nur schwer möglich ist, versucht diese Studie, die jeweiligen Startbedingungen, die rechtlichen, politischen, finanziellen Rahmenbedingungen auf nationaler und lokaler Ebene sowie die betrieblich relevanten Voraussetzungen für Jobrotationsprojekte zu untersuchen. Das Untersuchungsdesign identifiziert zunächst die wichtigsten Problemfelder für Jobrotationsprojekte, abgeleitet aus der Theorie der Übergangsarbeitsmärkte, und leitet daraus hypothetische Erfolgsbedingungen ab, die dann mit jeweils mehreren quantitativen und qualitativen Erfolgsindikatoren zusammengeführt werden. (HH)

"Job rotation as an important element of labour market policy has only a rather short tradition in most Member States of the European Union, except in the Scandinavian countries. The transnational partnership 'job rotation' was founded at the end of 1995 and financing for job rotation projects came mainly from the Community Initiative ADAPT, but also from the European Structural Funds. Job rotation here is defined as the combination of further training for the employed and substitution by a previously unemployed person. In the nonscandinavian countries manifold local initiatives were started, which operate under very heterogeneous institutional and financial national frameworks. For these reasons a solely quantitative comparison of results of the individual projects may be misleading. We attempt to analyse and compare in this study the legal, political and financial preconditions on the national and local level as well as the relevant incentives for the firm of job rotation projects. The research strategy of the study initially identifies the major key areas for job rotation projects, which can be deduced from the theory of transitional labour markets. Based on hypotheses about the necessary framework for success of job rotation we then confront these hypotheses with both quantitative and qualitative indicators in a third step. For example, the legal framework is compared on the basis of indicators on the existence of a right to further training for the employed and unemployed, legal obligations or a levy on firms for further training of their employees, dismissal protection legislation in case an employees takes a longer leave as well as the potential use of already existing regulation of active labour market policies for job rotation project. We compare Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom and Germany. The major results are: 1. far-reaching legal or collectively agreed regulations regarding further training for the employed and practice-oriented training for the unemployed and for sections of the non-working population are a necessary precondition for a wider spread of job rotation; 2. incentives for the substitution persons should be clearly positive and through an adequate reimbursement for substitution work, a sufficient increase in comparison to unemployment benefits needs to be assured; 3. costs incurred through job rotation projects should be 'fairly' distributed through a suitable co-funding structure in order to keep the so-called 'deadweight' effects as low as possible; 4. incentives for employees to undergo further training must be guaranteed through the existence of appropriate regulations and leave of absence for the purpose of improving one's skills must be flanked by secure dismissal protection legislation; 5. functional regional policy networks are necessary in order to implement the projects on the interface between labour market policy and structural policy; 6. job rotation in (not only) Germany could gain a new impetus through the wider spread of further training funds based on collective agreements including elements of job rotation and complemented through additional funding by labour market policy or tax reductions to participating firms. Under such a framework job rotation could make a stronger contribution to the reduction of unemployment by at the same time reaching higher productivity." (author's abstract)