Comparing Gross and Net Employment Outcomes from Structural Fund Programmes

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the gross and net employment outcomes from the largest EU structural funding programme in the UK, the Objective 1 West Wales and the Valleys programme. The article demonstrates the practical difficulties of moving from gross to net outputs. It is suggested that these difficulties are not always explicitly considered in EU programme evaluations. One result is that, in the UK at least, previous evaluations of the relationship between gross and net employment outcomes may have overestimated the additionality of the European structural funding element.