"According to widely held views, the concepts developed in the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark are prime examples of successful strategies for promoting employment and reducing unemployment. These countries were therefore the focus of attention at the international workshop...

"We reconsider the evidence of Lechner, Miquel and Wunsch (2004, 2005) on the effectiveness of training programmes for the unemployed conducted in East and West Germany in the period 1993-1994 by investigating whether, and if so, how overall policy conclusions depend on the particular choice of...

"The article describes (concentrates on the description of) the employment development and social problems related to labour market situation in Poland during the transition period (before the EU accession). It consists of four parts. The first gives an overview of basic tendencies in labour...

"With the 'First Act for Modern Services on the Labour Market' (Hartz I), an innovative earnings insurance scheme for older workers was introduced in 2003: anyone above the age of 50 who, in order to end or avoid unemployment, takes up a job paying much less than his/her previous employment,...

"The CFL (On-the-job Training) Programme was introduced in Italy in 1985 with the aim of reducing youth unemployment. The new programme offered employers two main advantages: it exempted them almost completely from payment of payroll taxes and it provided them with virtually the only opportunity...

"The promotion of business start-ups by formerly unemployed individuals has become an increasingly important instrument of German active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. With the introduction of the start-up subsidy (Existenzgründungszuschuss) on 1.1.2003 unemployed individuals who...

"The so-called Hartz reform introduced fundamental changes for publicly sponsored training in Germany. This concerns primarily the issuing of training vouchers as an exclusive allocation device, allowing potential participants free choice between training providers within a given training target...

"Zunächst werden die verschiedenen Konzepte zur Erklärung und Überwindung der Arbeitslosigkeit in der Bundesrepublik skizziert und kritisch beleuchtet. Während die neoklassische Argumentation des Sachverständigenrats empirisch äußerst schwach fundiert ist, bieten die marxistisch...

"In the 1980s the Netherlands found itself in a more far-reaching crisis than its European neighbours. The essential features of the policy reorientation - essentially wage restraint and reduction of working time, together with the linking of the Dutch Guilder to the D-Mark - have been retained...

"In recent years, the United Kingdom has been remarkably successful in reducing unemployment. The standardized unemployment rate fell from 10 percent in 1993 to 6 percent in 1998, and most observers agree that further reductions can be achieved in the years to come. Also with respect to...