Opportunities and limitations of successful labour market integration of the long-term unemployed

Combating
long-term unemployment is a central task of the active labour market policy.
Despite a wide range of established instruments and forms of support, there are
clear limits to the success of permanently integrating long-term unemployed
people into the labour market. This is the starting point for the present
study, which aims to investigate the opportunities as well as the limitations
of successfully integrating the long-term unemployed into the labour market.

A first
point of interest is analysing the structure of long-term unemployment. On this
basis, a typology of long-term unemployed people is to be defined, by considering
their specific issues, previous careers as well as the general framework
conditions. Subsequently, forms of support, instruments and select support
chains are examined with regard to their impact on the integration of long-term
unemployed people into the labour market. The perspective of companies is too
taken into account within the framework of the current analysis. Specifically,
the focus lies on exploring the contribution of companies to the labour market
integration of long-term unemployed persons as well as to the prevention of the
transition to long-term unemployment.

A multi-level
design is used for the present study:

• In a first step, a structural and
  longitudinal analysis of secondary data is carried out with focus on the group
  of long-term unemployed people in 2022.
• Based on this, a survey of long-term
  unemployed persons will be conducted by means of a representative
  quota-controlled online survey supplemented by a telephone survey.
• The entire database is first
  subjected to a descriptive typifying analysis of the causes, backgrounds and issues
  of long-term unemployment and then examined by using the multivariate
  statistical model of logistic regression with regard to key factors influencing
  the labour market integration of the long-term unemployed.
• At the same time, a survey of HR
  managers in companies (focus on AMS clients) will be conducted by means of a
  representative online survey in order to identify experiences and strategies
  regarding the employment of the long-term unemployed.

On the
basis of all analysis steps, the study aims to shed light on the limitations
that long-term unemployed persons must face upon (re-)entering the labour
market, but at the same time also to point out new prospects for their labour
market integration.