Even in times of labor shortages, it is difficult for the long-term unemployed to find good, permanent employment. Because: Private companies do not create enough suitable jobs for all people in Austria who want to work. A job guarantee provides meaningful employment for all those entitled to it, while at the same time producing public goods and services. Evidence of this can be found in case studies on job guarantees in Austria and France.
The market fails
Not just since the groundbreaking Study on the unemployed in Marienthal we know: unemployment makes you ill and is a social problem. Unemployed people lose social connection and have lower self-esteem. Unemployment leads to higher mortality, higher rates of alcoholism, resignation, depression, suicide and anxiety disorders. Added to this is the disciplining and stigmatization of unemployed people through neoliberal labor market policy, which has also increasingly gained a foothold in Austria.
Unemployment in many different facets is a constant side effect of our capitalist economic system. Even in the current phase of labor shortages, over 250,000 people in Austria are registered as unemployed, 113,000 people were long-term unemployed in April 2023 (i.e. registered with the AMS for more than a year, regardless of whether they were unemployed, in training or in short-term employment, which in less than two months ends). For all these people who want to work, the Austrian labor market does not manage to offer meaningful employment opportunities. There are various reasons for this: Excessive demands or poor working conditions for vacancies, health restrictions or care obligations of the persons concerned or simply discrimination based on origin, age or the duration of unemployment. A public job guarantee can remedy this market failure.
Job guarantees in Austria and France
A job guarantee fundamentally reforms labor market policy. The focus is on creating meaningful employment for unemployed people in order to effectively guarantee the right to good work. The job guarantee is a voluntary measure for the participants. As a permanent, counter-cyclical program, it would be an efficient automatic stabilizer. Macroeconomic instability is reduced while poverty and social exclusion are reduced through higher incomes of previously unemployed people and through the provision of public goods and services be massively reduced for everyone.
This idea has already become international implemented on a large scale. Projects in Austria and France also show that meaningful employment can be created. In the Action 20,000 between 2017 and 2019, over 3,800 people got a job despite the early hiring freeze after the change of government to ÖVP-FPÖ. In the first months of the action had 656 municipalities, public bodies and NPOs reportedto hire people. Im ongoing since 2020 Model project job guarantee Marienthal (MAGMA) of the AMS Lower Austria, up to 150 employees work mostly in a social enterprise or in NPOs, e.g. in a project to support older residents of Gramatneusiedl in everyday life, in wood and textile workshops or for renovation and gardening work. In France, 54 areas without long-term unemployment have been created since 2017 (“Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée”). So far have in it over 2,500 people found new jobs in public employment-oriented companies. Despite different health, professional and social backgrounds, it is possible to create meaningful employment in all of these projects.
Why are meaningful jobs being created?
Several success factors contribute to the fact that meaningful jobs are created in the projects mentioned:
- The search for and accreditation of institutions is carried out with the involvement of various stakeholders such as mayors, local companies, future employees and the locally responsible labor market administrations. In France, this was done in every territory an employment committee founded.
- Labor market neutrality (the job guarantee should not crowd out private companies) is negotiated locally, e.g. B. with the involvement of the social partners.
- The areas of application are widely spread as long as they meet social or ecological criteria.
- The participants often have the opportunity to select or help shape projects or jobs themselves. In addition, many participants go through preparatory measures and are advised and accompanied during their participation.
- The jobs are remunerated either under a collective agreement or at a minimum wage.
- Financing is secured longer than with transit jobs. In France, all employees are given permanent employment contracts.
Incidentally, Austria also has experience in other areas with guaranteed employment in social and ecological areas: in 2022 alone, 14,370 young Austrians did civilian service instead of military service. The areas of application (e.g. in the rescue service, in childcare or at concentration camp memorials) are determined in the National Council, and the facilities themselves are accredited by the local state government offices. The civil service agency, in turn, takes care of the matching between civil servants and institution – 80% of civil servants are either accommodated in the institution of their choice or work in the desired area.
What a job guarantee in Austria can look like
A job guarantee in Austria is also the order of the day when there is a shortage of workers. Because many long-term unemployed are denied meaningful employment on the Austrian labor market despite vacancies. This also applies to people with disabilities whose lack of integration in the labor market has been denounced for years. A job guarantee has been shown to reduce poverty and is fundable.
If the political will is there, meaningful jobs can be created for anyone who wants to work. As a first step, areas of application can be defined in the National Council (e.g. in the area of socio-ecological transformation, everyday support for people with restricted mobility, etc.). In a second step, local councils can be created in which stakeholders (AMS, municipalities or district offices, social partners, representatives of the unemployed) identify socially necessary and desired activities and either accredit projects or initiate them themselves. For the participants, proper employment contracts (ideally unlimited) with collectively agreed minimum wages and opportunities to participate in the concrete design of the projects are essential so that the job guarantee does not become a further activation measure. Individual programs can be created for specific target groups – there are historical examples of this, such as this Civilian Conservation Corps in rural areas or the National Youth Administration for young unemployed people in the USA in the 1930s. The matching between the unemployed and the job guarantee projects can take place either locally or through intensive advice and support from the AMS. The projects described show that a job guarantee creates meaningful employment.