Herausforderungen an die Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Hart am Wind (Challenges for labour market policy: Sailing close to the wind)

This paper examines which basic challenges labour market policy has to face, irrespective of all short-term economic turbulence, and which measures are necessary if a high level of employment is to be maintained even during future economic crises. According to the authors, three particular groups of issues are central: 1. Securing jobs for the low-skilled along with the promotion of the long-term unemployed with their well-known problems resulting from the interaction between the basic income support scheme, precarious employment and social inclusion; 2. Extension of the share of higher qualified workers, the closer networking of educational and labour market policy, removing the deficits in the training and employment of academics, stronger and more timely help for those disadvantaged by the educational system; 3. An increase in job offers through suitable framework conditions (improved compatibility of one's profession and family life, suitable working conditions in respect to the way work is organized, the opportunity to influence working conditions and remuneration, low barriers for the immigration of qualified migrants, humanisation of working life). Under the conditions of globalisation, technical progress and a changing world of work, the authors develop the basic principles of a labour market policy that both adapts and learns in order to suit changing circumstances and one which 'also shows the losers of these processes new perspectives'. (IAB)