<TITLE: Unemployment and Employment Policy at the Local Level
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: social policy
EVENT TYPE: doctoral defence presentation
FILE ID: UDEFP020
NOTES: continued in UDEFD020

RECORDING DURATION: 17 min 31 sec

RECORDING DATE: 21.9.2004

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: unknown

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 1

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50>


<S2> dear <FOREIGN> kustos </FOREIGN> professor <NAME S1> the opponent er professor <NAME S3> ladies and gentlemen as you probably all know the topic of my dissertation is unemployment and employment policy at the local level thereby i combine elements of the research into unemployment with elements of research into the situation of unemployed people , the work on my dissertation started in 1998 and it has three important limitations , first of all the focus is on the local level which gained increasing importance during recent years because of the processes which we know as globalisation and the EU integration that meant that powers and responsibilities were passed on from the national level to higher political levels but also from higher political levels down to the local level , the focus is particularly on the same topics that i've (xx) so especially the years 1998 and 1999 because that allowed me to assess the labour market er policies and the methods which were put in place after the employment crisis in the beginning of the 1990s , and then thirdly there will be special attention was paid er to the situation of long-term unemployed people as they usually suffer more from the involuntary absence of wage work than short-term unemployed , for the field study i've chosen the finnish region of tampere and the german region of giessen of course you all know where the region of tampere is but for those of you who have no idea where giessen is it's down there 70 kilometres north of frankfurt , without going too much into detail about the differences and similarities between these two research regions i just want to show you one graph concerning the development of the unemployment in these two regions as you can see here the development in er in giessen it has been er the unemployment has been already around ten per cent in the beginning or at the second half of the 1980s and it dropped a bit and then it was up to ten eleven and more per cent in er the second half or in the mid-1990s whereas in the case of tampere you can see that the unemployment was down to around six per cent and then within just two three years rocketed sky-high up to 23 per cent and then just slowly decreased in the second half of the 1990s , the er the development of the long-term unemployment it followed this same trend of course with the usual time lag of one or two years , the study was designed as comparative case study with a strong focus on qualitative information it ha- it did have couple of advantages for example it allowed me close look at the local situation in tampere and giessen it provided knowledge concerning how two european regions in an increasingly er united europe are coping with the same problem namely unemployment and its effects , it also helped to understand the coherence between region-specific factors and on one hand and then on the other hand the ability to solve labour market crises and last but not least er comparative case studies (xx) (and neglect) of region- of regional diversities in policy making but as with all research projects er it er compared to case studies doesn't only have advantages there are also some disadvantages one is the difficulty to come up with generalisations however in this context two points should be kept in mind first of all unlike multivariate statistical techniques which usually try to simplify assumptions concerning causes and interrelations er comparative case studies they assume a maximum of complexi- er complexity and they try to understand patterns of diversities well therefore i had this my focus was first and foremost on the local level and only just subordinately on the national level or on other levels , secondly er doctor gallie had shown already at the end of the 1970s that it is possible to overcome this shortfall concerning these generalisations by applying wide range of data sources this approach is knowledge triangulation or mixed methods and it was also applied for my dissertation , so in order to understand the effect of labour market crisis and the reactions to it in tampere and in giessen i gathered data from three different sources from the authorities which provided me with statistical information only about the local situation the national situation and the european situation er e- then i did interviews er in-depth interviews with local actors in the field of the regional employment policy and last but not least i have local unemployed people who answered questionnaires and i treat them these long term unemployed people as citizen experts in the meaning of (<NAME>) , er this the data which i gathered er in this way was er processed with the help of content analysis and then er also embedded in a wider er in the in the (xx) series (xx) unemployment and labour market policy . the theoretical frame er background of my study is based on two pillars first of all the theory of social capital by robert putnam er he found out during his studies in in italy that regions with a strong social capital are economically better off than regions with a weak social capital and if i translate that er to my study to my field of studies then it would mean that regions with a strong social capital they have better ability to cope with labour market crisis , the second pillar is the theories concerning capitalist ethic and the meaning and functions of work by weber jahoda and others er , they accordingly involuntary absence of wage work has severe effects not only on the individuals but also on society er as a whole and one could also conclude from that as this capitalist ethic is spread around er the globe in the industrialised countries that the effect of the negative effects erm can be found w- for unemployment can be found also in different european regions , concerning my results i've found a great deal of similarities between tampere and giessen for example the negative effects for the unemployed were rather similar and the explanation for that ar- is the capitalist ethic and the meaning of er the meaning and functions of work there was similarities concerning the negative effects for the research regions er because er the research regions had a similar er responsibilities in the field of er social policy and then also of course the regions depend on er on taxes and in times of crisis er the tax revenues are really going down , er similarities were also found with regards to coping strategies of the unemployed that was because they were facing similar problems so they applied similar coping strategies and there was also similarities concerning the actors er involved in the field of the local employment policy that was because of legal and social responsibilities of the actors legal responsibilities for example in the cases n- municipalities social responsibilities for example in the case of trade unions or churches , and then also there were actors which had individual interest like for example private companies or er associations of unemployed people , er another similarity was detected with regards to the matters taken by these individual actors in the field of the local er the- er employment policy er that was because their (xx) were facing similar problems so they had similar approaches er to help them overcome these problems like for example the integration measures or measures er to overcome er social- psychological problems , however one big difference was also detected during my studies and and that is connected to the regional employment strategy in the case of tampere there were after the 1990 crisis there were many new actors on the in the field of er er employment er local employment policy they applied networking and corporation in order to overcome this crisis and had a holistic approach er towards towards the problem so bottom line at the end of the 1990s we see a reduction of the unemployment in tampere from 23 per cent er in the worst in the worst years 93 94 down to 16 per cent in 99 however it's also important to notice that the level was still far above the er 1990 level , in giessen on the other hand there were only those actors er involved which had been there already in the 1980s so no new actors and they had very individualistic approach so each actor did and er then applied the methods he or she er considered er as important they were very problem-focused but they were not cooperating rather there was strong competitive thinking between between the actors involved there so bottom line at the end of the 1990s in the case of giessen we see that the unemployment remained on a very high level , how can these differences be explained well in the case of tampere we have a traditionally strong role of the local level (in the) employment policies so when there was more respo- responsibility passed on to the local level and to the municipalities it was nothing new for them they had been there before er we also have in finland this tradition of cooperate- er cooperatism and consensus orientation which er enabled er or which yeah which enabled networking and er and cooperation on the local level and then we have the strong influence of the european union er policies the european employment strategy and national policies which demanded a holistic approach and regional networking from the local actors what should not forget in this context that the unemployment er in finland was received and also in tampere was received as a shock this this enormous rise increase the enormous increase of the unemployment er in the in the beginning of the 1990s was a real shock experience and then also the actors in tampere in the second half of the 1990s they were operating in an improving er economic framework , in giessen on the other hand we have habituation effects so the unemployment was around ten per cent again well they have been there before the level is nothing new there was no shock experience as in finland we also have a big influence of the european employment strategies and the EU financing programmes though er there was no pressure from this side er to increase cooperation we also have this we have on the other hand we have strong influence of national er policies but these national policies were also very problem-focused but they didn't demand any cooperation and then er it's also important to notice here that the actors in giessen unlike the ones in tampere that in the end of the 1990s they were still operating in a rather difficult economic environment , what lessons can we learn from the cases in tampere and giessen or what recommendations ca- can we give to these regions er in the case of tampere i would recommend strongly the fostering and the enhancement of the existing networks because it's very easy to cover with some pacts but then at the end it is rather difficult to keep these pacts alive er in because the actors are rather different as far as power is concerned as far as financial resources is concerned , er in the case of giessen i would recommend er the making of an employment pact similar to the one in tampere however it is rather difficult er i know it would would would take them a lot of energy to overcome their er political animosities er so therefore but it is difficult but i- i think it would be worthwhile for the region , i also detected a lack of er information concerning methods and projects in both regions so therefore i- er i would suggest er the establishment of some comprehensive information systems , and er with regards to the financers er i would say that it's important that there are early and long lasting decisions with regard to financial issues because if the projects have to apply every year again for for money and funding they have to write reports and of course and every year that keeps them er away from doing their actual their actual work and then i think also in this context it's important not only to find reintegration mer- measures and but also measures which take care of the social psychological problems of the people who will remain unemployed it's an illusion that we will create for example in germany four million jobs within the next two or three years so someone needs to take care of these people , and then last but not least er there should be some binding evaluation standards er introduced in the field of the employment policy which will allow also to have some er quantitative er comparison of the results of this project at the moment it's not really possible because each of these projects has the has own ways or no ways to er to calculate that they are successful (at it) , last but not least is (longing) some concluding remarks , and the first one er concerning what has happened after my after my field study in the research regions so primarily the years 2000 to 2003 er one could say that the labour market trends in tampere and giessen basically continued so in tampere we saw a further er reduction of the unemployment by er three per cents so the figure went down to 16 to 13 per cent er in the until autumn 2003 in giessen the situation also improved slightly but then at the end er of 2003 the figures were up to er to ten per cent once again , er on the european level we see er i think we see a focus shift from the er from the present and the situation of the long-term unemployed people er to towards more long-term goals in the shape for example of the lisbon er process so the question is there er what about the the unemployed today 'cause if we are focusing more and more on these long-term goals we should not forget that there are in the EU 15 er currently about 14 million people without work , er then you probably have all heard er about these labour market reforms that are going on in germany and the protesters er protests that are connected to it er this er the keyword there is this hartz four it stands for er er financial reduction ar- er the reductions to support for long-term unemployed people to put it in a nutshell and there are also er increased pressure on unemployed long-term unemployed people to to take work and there have been lots of protests er against these reforms i think they are justified because there are no new jobs created with this measure er it is based on the ideology that the unemployment are that the unemployed are lazy and that if we push them a little bit more they will find a job it also suggests that there are enough jobs which those people can take i think it also increases the risk of er poverty in germany because the number of er these working poor will most likely increase in the future and then i think there might also be some strategy connected to it to replace the civil insurance in case er the conscription law in germany will be abolished er in the in the near future , and then finally i think that in finland there is the danger that this great solidarity which which we could see towards the unemployed er in the second half of the 1990s that this will or maybe has already er er gone or or er it doesn't exist anymore then because there we also see some kind of habituation effects here so in finland also nine per cent of unemployment er is er has been er around for for several years now and there's nothing nothing new about that anymore or the shock experience er has vanished basically . this brings me to the end of my presentation and i now ask you professor <NAME S3> as opponent appointed by the faculty of social sciences to make the comments on my dissertation which you consider pertinent </S2>
