The efficiency of matching in Portuguese public employment service

This paper assesses the matching efficiency of the Portuguese public employment service, applying Data Envelopment Analysis combined with principal component analysis to Portuguese administrative data and comparing the situations in June 1998 and June 2001. We find evidence that the Portuguese public employment service increased its efficiency potential from 0.54 (June 1998) to 0.65 (June 2001), becoming more efficient and more homogeneous. However, employment-centres differ in efficiency and factors affecting efficiency diverge among employment-centres. Policies aimed at improving the efficiency of the matching process should be employment-centre specific. Indeed, we find that some employment-centres could benefit from investing in labour market policies, some from investing in social policies, and others from investing in income support policies. Finally, some employment-centres could benefit from a mix of these socio-economic policies.