Clara Lindblom
Success factors for effective labour market projects. A comparative study of fifteen Social Fund financed projects.
Research report 2014/7, 96 p.
For decades, the Swedish municipalities have had a major responsibility for the implementation of labour market policy. Knowledge on local labour market policy measures is limited however. During the period 2007–2013, the European Social Fund awarded funding to a large number of labour market projects, of which the majority were implemented by local actors. This report presents a study of fifteen local labour market projects that were financed by the Social Fund.
The study’s objective is to identify the factors that are common only to those projects that have succeeded better than the Public Employment Service in helping foreign-born individuals into work. The study is based on a review of project documentation and on interviews with project managers and staff at the relevant social fund projects, co-ordinators at the administering agency and officials linked to all eight regional structural fund partnerships.
The study concludes that there are four factors that in combination can explain the outcomes of the successful projects. These are having a well-functioning project organisation, a high degree of individual activity planning, enhanced collaboration and either a high degree of labour market focus or using work experience that is highly focused on employment.
The report also presents a number of problems that those interviewed perceived as obstacles to the projects functioning as well as they might. These include restrictions caused by the co-funding system, difficulties collaborating with those responsible for the relevant regular activities, such as the Public Employment Service and the Social Insurance Agency, and that the actors who participate in the process to select projects for funding base their assessments on different objectives. The report therefore also includes a number of recommendations for the coming programme period.
This is a translation of the report Framgångsfaktorer för effektiva arbetsmarknadsprojekt. The report is part of the work of the Thematic Group for Inclusion in Working Life.
