What works for whom? Youth labour market policy in Poland – webinar

Which support instruments are most effective for the unemployed youth? The aim of the workshop organized on March 29, 2021, was to answer this question and present the results of our evaluation study. Apart from that, we presented the methodological guide, in which we included guidelines for people who would like to use administrative data for research purposes. We supplemented our conclusions with the experiences of project partners from Hungary, Spain and Italy.

Summary of the workshop During the first part of the workshop, Mateusz Smoter discussed the situation of young people in the labour market in Poland and presented “Methodological Guide” – a document that provides a step-by-step introduction to the counterfactual evaluation of labour market policies for youth, with a focus on the use of administrative data. Apart from that, Mateusz presented the difference between the standard way of measuring employment effectiveness and the counterfactual evaluation, which we used during the Youth Employment PartnerSHIP project.   In the second part, Karol Madoń presented the results of the analysis in which we compared the relative effectiveness of six selected forms of support available in labour offices for young people in 2015 and 2016: internship, training, internship voucher, training voucher, intervention works and public works. Karol discussed the advantages of using administrative data and the related problems. Using the propensity score matching method, he showed how to find the “statistical twin” of a given beneficiary and on this basis to conclude how his fate would have developed had he received a different form of support.  

The main conclusions from the Polish evaluation report are:

• Public works are the least effective form of support
• Internship vouchers are more effective than regular internships
• Training fails for women (possibly due to limited offer)
• Evaluations help to improve the effectiveness of policies

Over 240 people took part in the webinar – thank you for coming! The entire webinar (in Polish) can be viewed here