LOCAL-LABOR MARKET POLICY - LIMITS AND POTENTIALS

It is very clear that policies concerning unemployment are the poor relations among social policies. For example, while 'structural reforms' affecting old age pension and health insurance have been or are being discussed in several countries and have caused the legislators to take action, in recent years there have been no 'structural reforms' concerning unemployment insurance and labour market policy. At the time, considerable importance has been attached to the local level, at which there is a broader discussion of the necessity of establishing a policy area dealing exclusively with measures against unemployment. The first part of this article discusses why the problem of unemployment is now considered more thoroughly at the local level than at any other, then outlines three different types of local activity to combat unemployment. Finally, it is stressed that while in a changing welfare state the local level has achieved a new and outstanding importance, this can only be meaningful within the context of a newly defined relationship between local and supra-local political systems.