Counterfactual impact evaluation of "Work Experience Laureati e Laureate - WELL" (Work Experience for Graduates) : the impact of an ESF-funded intervention in Umbria region

The WELL programme was financed by the ESF as part of the 2007-2013 Regional Operational Programme of Umbria Region, Italy. The aim of the programme was to increase the career prospects of unemployed graduates in the region. It consisted of two measures: (i) on-the-job training for unemployed graduates and (ii) wage subsidy to firms and organizations that eventually hired the trainee. The goal of the CIE was to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of employability of participants. In doing so, monitoring data of the programme were combined with administrative data from the Compulsory Communication Database (CCD) of the Italian Ministry of Labour, which records total hirings, renewals, transformations, and cessations of labour contracts in the private sector. The analysis was performed by means of propensity score matching. Results indicate that WELL participants are more likely to be employed. This positive effect is measured only for participants who found a job within the region boundaries. However, policy implications are still drawn with caution and require some further crosschecking for potential unobserved factors, since the limited number of variables in the matching impede the full attribution of causality. Therefore, CRIE and Umbria Region agreed on extending the current analysis by including additional data on past labour market experience in the matching procedure, in order to strengthen the comparability of participants and non-participants and hence the identification of causal impact of the intervention.