Assisting Workers Displaced By Structural Change PDF Download

This monograph takes the perspective that increased awareness of how active labor market programs operate in other nations can substantially improve the way in which the United States deals with worker displacement. Chapter 1 considers the costs of worker displacement and how government programs designed to reduce these costs are evaluated. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the labor market policies in place in the seven countries examined: Sweden, Germany, Japan, Britain, Canada, Australia, and the United States. It investigates a possible linkage between these countries' labor market policies and differences in their unemployment rates. Chapter 3 reviews the evaluation evidence available for demonstration projects and experiments implementing active labor market programs in the United States as well as evaluation reports examining the effectiveness of training and basic education programs in demonstration projects targeted to economically disadvantaged workers. Chapter 4 considers adult retraining programs. It investigates the government training model in Sweden, Britain's employer-led/school-based model, and firm-based training systems in Germany and Japan. Chapter 5 focuses on employment services. It examines carefully the job matching system provided by the Swedish public employment service and job development services supplied by the Canadian Industrial Adjustment Service. Chapter 6 presents findings and outlines an agenda for assisting displaced workers. Appendixes include 148 references and an index. (YLB)