Impact of Lower Case Loads of Placement Officers for Unemployed Youths in the Public Employment Service Vienna

Many European countries are facing the key challenge of integrating low-skilled jobless young people into the labour market. From 2018 to 2020, the Public Employment Service (AMS) Vienna tested a new model of intensified support ("case management") by means of a controlled randomised experiment. The target group consisted of young unemployed persons with low formal qualifications and minimum income support, many of them asylum seekers and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection. As the present impact analysis shows, the increase in staff significantly increased the intensity of support. It led to an increase in placement proposals, measure assignments and participation, as well as sanctions in the form of benefit suspensions. In line with the goal, the young people were increasingly placed in apprenticeships or other training and continuing education programs instead of being quickly placed in "auxiliary jobs". In the short term of one year, the intensified support did not (yet) have a significant effect on integration into employment. The long-term effects on labour market integration will largely depend on the extent to which the increased investment in education and training leads to a long-term increase in employment opportunities.