Germany: The Local Impact of Labour Market

The recent reform of the public employment service has greatly expanded the role of the local authorities in providing comprehensive labour market services for unemployed welfare recipients. It does not, however, create a unified local job centre as initially envisioned, but in fact splits the delivery of employment services into two organisational units based on benefit entitlement rather than on their service needs. In addition, the focus of the reform is on the governance or mode of implementation of labour market programmes and not on innovation in programmes with a regional development focus. In this context, special intermediary organisations at regional level play a useful role in enhancing the institutional capacity to assist with the practical implementation of various programmes for promoting employment. The most important tasks these organisations have are to provide the actors of labour market policy with professional consulting services and to work at the state level to co-ordinate programmes and projects co-funded through the ESF.