Preparing the NEAP 2014-2015: some
preliminary comments based on European
and regional experience
World Bank/Government of Macedonia Workshop
April 22 2014
Employment policy - planning architecture in
Macedonia
• Europe 2020 – guiding and organizational principles
• National Employment Strategy 2015
• National Employment Action Plan 2014-2015
• Annual Operational Plan
• Sectoral / Target group strategies/OPs – youth, VET, innovation etc.
Q – Are there legal requirements for the sequence NES/NEAP/AOP?
NEAP – content
• Active labor market programs (traditionally core but by no means
exclusive content of NEAP)
• Everything else (institutions and regulations, business environment,
investment incentives, education reforms, TA projects)
Everything else impacts overall labor market performance much more
than NEAP!
Coordinating and financing NEAP
• As a rule, coordination the task of ministries in charge of labor,
employment and social policy
• PES carrying out ALMPs (ESA in MK) - typically under control of MLESP
– via performance agreements etc. – better possibilities to collect
information on implementation, monitor and steer the processes
• Other institutions carrying out all other measures – line ministries,
agencies etc. – typically only marginally involved in the preparation
and implementation of NEAP
• MoF (making decisions on the financing) often cuts allocations
originally envisaged by the NEAP
Challenges of integrating/mainstreaming
NEAP into NRP / National Semester
• Think of integrating NEAP into annual budget planning process – base
planning process on the LMI (ideally LMII) collected and
monitoring/evaluation exercise of previous NEAP
• Restructuring policy creation cycle within the National Semester (with
a view of integrating it into European Semester) – coordinate PEP
(pre-accession economic program) and NEAP
• Typically, even the information base for PEP and NEAP not always the
same - former often using establishment employment and
unemployment registration data, latter exclusively LFS data.
NEAP – organizing (presentation) principle
Centred around key problems identified and policy
solutions to tackle them
in MK – Europe 2020 Guidelines
7 – Increase activity, reduce unemployment
8,9 – Improve skills and education
10 – Support inclusion on the labor market
Content issues – ALMPs in draft MK NEAP
• All ALMPs concentrated around Guideline 7
• Very long list of programs
• No systematic order of programs (for example, could make use of OECD or
any other relevant classification, including EU which adds time-sharing
measures)
• Information, matching and counselling
• Training and lifelong learning (classroom, on-the-job, incl. apprenticeship and
internship)
• Direct job creation
• Private sector (hiring subsidies, self-employment)
• Public sector (public works)
• Programs aimed at specific target groups are sometimes looked at separately
• Youth
• Persons with disabilities
ALMPs – defining target groups
• Very often program target groups all (or almost all) unemployed or
young unemployed
• It might be useful to try to think individual programs through to come
up with the groups they are best suited for (or are the most frequent
beneficiaries), and then to check if the current portfolio of programs
reflects strategic targeting priorities
• As a guiding principle, given the scarcity of funds for ALMPs, more
expensive programs should be aimed at unemployed who need them
the most
• But everybody should be eligible for intensive assistance and
counselling
Testing youth ALMPs for consistency and
comprehensiveness – youth guarantee?
• Tackling youth unemployment is clearly the priority task
• Youth measures are part of core ESA activities
• Could then current many youth measures be integrated into a unified
youth guarantee program?
• Is every young person eligible for profiling and intensive counselling within
3 months or so?
• What are the groups of young people who can be guaranteed access to
training (apprenticeship, internship) programs?
• What are the groups of young people who can be guaranteed access to
hiring subsidies, self-employment programs or public works?
• Is there any significant group of young people left behind?
Presentation issues – some comments / recs
on organizing ALMPs in NEAP
• Not all ALMPs belong to Guideline 7 – training programs are closer to
Guideline 8, skill needs analysis clearly belongs to G8 etc.
• But, many programs simultaneously aim at achieving goals of more than
one guideline – it is questionable if adopted systematization principle for
ALMPs (and NEAP measures overall) is optimal
• Perhaps arranging programs (and other NEAP activities) around own
targets to be achieved, not around broad European guidelines? Start from
own main problems, develop policy solutions and design specific actions.
(ESRP exercise).
• Is there a need to have a separate entry for one and the same program if
there is a different target group or different financing source?
Some more random comments and questions
• ESA operates both self-employment grants and self-employment
loans. What is justification for such approach? Does it do it on its own
or hires a bank?
• Activity No 7 – Exemption of contribution dues – has no fiscal
implications. How is it possible?
Brief overview of regional
experience
Serbia and Montengero
NEAP in Serbia - brief overview
• Legal source – Law on employment and unemployment insurance
• Strategic architecture – Annual operationalization of 10-year National
Employment Strategy (2011-2020)
• Legal source for Performance Agreement between the MLESP and
National Employment Service
• Its sequence aligned by law with the annual budgetary process (NEAP
in theory precedes the budget), but in practice MoF frequently cuts
the planned expenditures
NEAP 2014 in Serbia – brief overview
• 3 strategic priorities in 2014 – 1) improving labor market situation and
institutions, 2) better inclusion of vulnerable groups and development of
social entrepreneurship, and 3) improving quality of labor force
• ALMP listed by type, with main features presented, in a separate brief
section
• Measures and activities listed under 3 priorities
• Concrete financial allocation and targeted number of participants in ALMPs
not in NEAP, left for the Performance Agreement between MLESP and NES.
• Efforts to adjust annually overarching priorities from Employment Strategy
based on labor market information and intelligence – for example, if a
group`s relative labor market position is worsening, more resources should
be allocated to ALMPs targeting that group.
NEAP 2014 in Montenegro
• 4-year Employment and Human Resources Strategy 2012-2015 serves
as a framework for annual plans
• Annual plan 2014 keep the structure of priorities unchanged, report
about the progress made in the previous year and states plans for
current year
• New programs and activities are entered in the appropriate sections
as they are being created