Search results

Youth unemployment is of paramount concern for the European Union. Young people are facing potentially slow and difficult transitions into stable jobs. What optimally supports young people on the labour market poses a challenging question for economic policy makers. Active labour market policies can be beneficial to young unemployed people. The aim of active labour market policy is to improve employability of the unemployed. The consequences of an overly generous welfare state can be a reduction in motivation to work. The effectiveness of employment programmes is therefore a crucial step in the process. This paper aims to estimate the treatment effect of subsidized employment programmes on young Dutch unemployed people using difference in differences propensity score matching. We test whether the effects of subsidized employment programmes for young Dutch unemployed people are positive and strong in both the short and long term on the probability of re-employment and on the probability of participation in the regular educational system in comparison with the outcome produced in the event that an individual would continue seeking employment as an unemployed person. The probability of re-employment in short-term circumstances is positive, but small. Whereas with long-term examples (two years after the programme start) the probability is negative. Alternatively, the probability of participation in regular educational systems is positive in the short-term as well as in the long-term, but evidently decreases in the long-term. Welfare reforms undertaken in the Netherlands are directed towards enhancing efficiency. The role of social partners in social security administrations is reduced and the reforms are intended to promote reintegration of people who are out of work. There is a general agreement that the Netherlands is going in the right direction by giving priority to work and study over benefits, as it has become evident that generous social benefits make employment policies inefficient.

Background: Labour market policy aims to fight against unemployment and to raise employment. With this study we attempt to contribute to the evidence of the effectiveness of active labour market policy. Objectives: In the empirical part of the paper we aim to research the relations between the labour market policies and macroeconomic variables. Methods/Approach: In order to distinguish the effects of expenditures for labour market policies on unemployment rate, we separately analysed the effects of expenditures for active labour market policies and the effects of expenditures for passive labour market policies on unemployment rate using panel regression analysis. Results: The expenditures for active labour market policies have negative and statistically significant effect on unemployment rate, whereas the expenditures for passive labour market policies have positive and statistically significant effect on unemployment rate. Conclusions: Not only the activation strategies with benefit conditioning, but also encouraging and enabling unemployed person to actively approach in searching for a job should be implemented. The implementation of activation strategies which create favourable conditions for unemployed people to develop their skills, fulfil their potential, continuously maintain contacts with the employers and actively participate in the society should be supported.

Abstract

Background/purpose: The interest of measuring customer satisfaction is reflected in its ability to gain customer loyalty, enhance favourable word of mouth, lead to repeat purchases and improve a company's market share and profitability. The issue of integrating the Kano model of customer satisfaction with other models and tools to support development or improvement of a product, or to determine market strategies, is relatively unexplored in the Slovenian sector. This research aims to construct the Kano model in order to enhance customer satisfaction in the case of home appliances.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Data was collected using an online survey amongst randomly selected individuals from the service interventions for an end users database. Principal component factor analysis was first used to identify the underlying factors of home appliance characteristics. In the next phase we calculated the derived and stated importance of customer satisfaction, which was then used to construct the Kano model of customer satisfaction. We further analysed which factors are the strongest drivers, or predictors, of repeat purchase using multiple regression analysis.

Results: In the study we identified the underlying home appliance factors. The results show that these factors are: sales environment, price, user features, design features and technical features. The results were then used to construct the Kano model where the analysis goes beyond the qualitative analysis by implementing two approaches, stated and derived importance approach. According to the Kano model, marketers should concentrate on delight characteristics such as: wider knowledge of the salesperson, professional skills of the salesperson, design of home appliance, brand of home appliance. What is more, factors called 'user features' are the strongest predictors of repeat purchase.

Conclusion: This paper links the Kano model with measuring customer satisfaction and presents a contribution for marketing research theory. Therefore, the results could be used to support optimization of business decision-making, as well as for further scientific research.

The main aim of the research is to investigate whether small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employment affects total European Union (EU-28) employment using panel data models during the 2005–2016 period. The panel econometric results con- firm the significant association between SMEs employment in ser- vice sectors and overall economy employment, whereas the effect of SMEs industry sectors employment was found insignificant. The results are robust in a spite of the fact that during the studied period the EU-28 countries experienced economic crisis suggest- ing the important role that SMEs can play in job creation and in reduction of unemployment even when macro-economic enabling environment might be less favourable.