Spatial diversity of effectiveness of forms of professional activisation in Poland in years 2008–2014 by poviats

Abstract

Research background: Because the active labour market policy requires high resources, it is important to analyse the effectiveness of its instruments. For the unemployment, it is essential to identify the groups of persons threatened by the long-term unemployment, to assess the impact of programmes on exit from unemployment and monitoring the disbursement of funds. Purpose of the article: The goal of the article was identification of clusters of poviats in Poland with respect to cost and employment effectiveness of basic forms of professional activisation in the years 2008–2014. Methods: The poviats were clustered by means of the k-means method. Variables were standardised and the number of clusters was determined by means of the v-fold cross-validation. Findings & Value added: The analysis did not allow to unambiguously specify areas in Poland with better use of funds allocated in the activisation programmes. The poviats in the middle-east Poland were generally characterized by worse values of effectiveness. However, the unemployment rate in these areas was relatively small. On the contrary, the poviats in the north-east Poland had high unemployment rate and the funds were used effectively. Assessment of effectiveness of forms of professional activisation is very important because the activities of poviat labour offices influence the counteraction to unemployment.