Patterns of Roma employment and the capacity of labour market policies to

make a change

Messing Vera, Ph.D.Center for Policy Study, CEU, Budapest;

Center for Social Sciences, HAS

2nd NEUJOBS Validation Even:Employment 2025 - Ho will Multiple

Transitions Affect the European Labour Market

9-11 April 2014, Bonn

Task1: Overview of labour market regulations (influencing both the labor supply an demand side) that influence the employment of low educated people + overview the labour market situation of Roma/Gypsy population in the 5 countries;

Task2: Overview and analysis of labour market policies explicitly targeting or indirectly affecting employment opportunities of Roma population in the 5 countries;

Task3: Fieldwork research investigating how policies influence labour market position and opportunities of Roma locally;

Task4: Synthesis of the macro and micro level investigations. Policy study on patterns of Roma employment.

Construction of WP19

Phase 2: desk research on policies Phase 3: Exploratory micro research conducted in 5

countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Spain). Aims:

Understand how centrally designed labour market policies and employment programs are implemented locally;

Understand how the local level transforms centrally designed programs;

Limitation: Micro-level in depth study -> provides a snapshot of „here”

and „now” -> findings can not be generalized.

Phase 4: Amalgamation of the above. Policy implications

The empirical research

Table 2.1. Employment rates of Roma according to various data sources

UNDP 20111

FRA 20112

EU Inclusive 20113

National survey4

Bulgaria 34% 35% 31%

Hungary 23% 36% 20% (A modul)

26% (B modul)

Slovakia 15% 29%

Spain 19% 44% 60%4

Romania 30% 32% 36% 40%

1. Methodological decisions result in highly diverging employment rates within the same country – we do not know how low in fact the employment rate of Roma is;2. It is definitely lower than that of non-Roma.

Low levels of education: although in Hungary and Slovakia have Roma the highest educational levels, in these two countries is the employment level the lowest. Why???

Main reasons of low employment

Source: FRA Roma survey 2011

Structures of the economy: the strength of economic sectors that are potential employers of low skilled (construction industry, tourism, agriculture);

Crisis: the crisis since 2008 hit the low skilled workforce, and among them Roma, hard. Exactly those economic branches were affected most, which are potential employers of low-skilled (construction ind., tourism)

Regional disadvantage: A vast part of Roma resides in economically marginalized regions, characterized by enduring long-term unemployment and lack of jobs.

Causes behind low employment rates of Roma

Cost of formally employing low skilled workforce: regulations on minimum wage and contributions. Decision of multinational companies – major employers of low skilled – are driven by labour cost. Enormous differences among the 5 countries.

The significance of informal employment: According to UNDP regional survey 20-60% of Roma work informally in CEE countries.

Discrimination: is a substantial barrier to Roma employment, especially at its entry point in Central-East Europe. 40-70% of Roma declared such experiences in the LM.

Causes behind low employment rates of Roma

Lack of willingness to work UNDP survey as well as national surveys prove that there is a very high willingess to work among Roma.

Exploiting the social welfare system. Employment rates are highest in countries with a relatively generous social welfare safety net (Spain)

What are not causes of low employment rates? Breaking some

„public sense” stereotypes

ALMP targeted explicitly to Roma are rare. Exception is the Spanish ACCEDER; and few, local

programs in CEE countriesReasons: • political risk; • functionality: the roots of high unemployment lie

in vulnerabilities unrelated with ethnicity, such as low education, geographical disadvantages, cost of labour;

• lack of ethnic data -> problems of designing and monitoring outcomes of ethnically targeted programs.

Instead : we looked at mainstream programs and their potentials to reach Roma unemployed.

Policy responses: framework

ALMP expenditure by type of action and by member state, 2010 (% of GDP)

The mandate of EO included registration of unemployed, training and skill building services, mentoring and job-match services in all countries;

In reality in Romania and Bulgaria interviewees gave account of the registration function. No job match services and extreme cases of mistreatment, humiliation and discrimination of Roma unemployed.

Often they did not reach out to Roma residing in marginalized settlements;

Lack of tailored services (exception is Spain). Proposal:

Awareness raising training for Employment Office (EO) servants; Regularly surveying of client satisfaction in EOs, including the aspect

of discrimination; Employ staff from the Roma community; EO Services should move to the clients in marginalized settlements

instead of the currently prevalent principle of “clients should travel to the office”.

Offering tailored, multiple services.

Institutional environment of ALMP: employment (labour) offices, job

centers

Lack of available data on Roma participation in policy measures is a major obstacle to designing, implementing and monitoring ALMP impact on Roma in all countries.

Ethnic data can be more a tool of monitoring impact of ALMP on Roma and thus support better targeting rather than designing ethnically targeted programs;

Proposal: Self-declared ethnicity of beneficiaries should become a

part of anonymized surveys on ALMP ; Roma surveys should ask about participation in ALMP; Including questions on self-declared ethnicity into large

scale comparative surveys (LFS, SILK, household panel survey).

Findings: The data problem

In HU, SL, BG and SP. This is the ALMP reaching the largest number of Roma unemployed. It is a top priority in HU ALMP:

Two categories (Torfing; Bonoli 2010) Negative activation : relies on sanctions and benefit

reduction (HU, Sl)

versus Positive activation: relies on improving skills and

empowerment (SP).

Response to low employment: Job creation

Mundane and redundant work; stigmatization effect (SK,BG, HU). Public work becomes a trap – it traps unemployed in the circulation

of public work and social welfare benefits (BG, HU, SL) – it is not a path to employment.

Defencelessness of „beneficiaries” if PE is tied to entitlement to benefits.

LM distortion effect: filling in regular positions with public workers (SK, HU replacing positions of retired by PE);

Lowered productivity;

Proposal: involve meaningful activities that bear an added value; be part of a complex intervention including several of the

following elements: tailored training, personalised mentoring, efficient job-match services; (Spain)

Limit the scope and time (offer only to the unemployed in the most vulnerable situations and only for a limited period of time); (Spain)

operated in the form of job try-out; not be regarded by governments as ‘the solution’ for the

employment of Roma.

Practices of job creation

Aim: to bridge the lack of trust of employers towards unemployed belonging to vulnerable groups and decrease cost of their employment

Existed in all countries with different conditions and level of support, but applied only in HU in great numbers.

May be very efficient: this ALMP contributes the most to LM integration (Scharle 2013)

Roma are not a target group: age groups, period of unemployment; returnees (young mothers) etc.

Proposal: Conditions prescribed for employers should remain as flexible as

possible while aspects demarcating beneficiaries are set in a restrictive manner (by setting multiple circumstances of disadvantaged situations.

Ethnicity should be identified as an aspect of vulnerability.

Response to high cost of employment: wage subsidy

Training are not suitable to address the major educational disadvantages of Roma – only public education could do this!

This is the largest segment of ALMP in most countries (not in Hungary).

Proposals: The content and qualifications provided by training programmes

should be regularly adjusted to the needs of the local labour market. To this end, the EO should conduct regular surveys of local employers.

Training programmes should be as practical as possible, and organized in cooperation with local firms.

As opposed to the prevalent ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach of many training programmes, courses should be more personalised, and adapted to the needs and capacities of unemployed individuals.

Defining a goal for Roma participation; (Hu)

ALMP response to low education: Training

No anti-discrimination programs or affirmative actions found which would counterweight the effects of discrimination, with the exception of Spanish ACCEDER.

Proposals: employing Roma in public offices and are involved

in designing and implementing ALMP; giving preference to Roma applicants for jobs in

public offices; promoting active participation of Roma NGOs in the

design and monitoring of ALMP targeting disadvantaged long-term unemployed;

awareness-raising training for LO workers

Response to discrimination: affirmative action

The important difference lies in the distribution of EU Funds (ERDF and ESF): whether Roma are involved, participate or not.

The implementation then follows a mainstreaming (explicit but not exclusive) principle.

Consequence: significant Roma participation; Stable, calculable and sustainable programs; Significant funding;

The Spanish vs. Central European „models”

ALMP that reaches Roma ALMP do not address the roots and causes of Roma unemployment (education, costs employment , economic structure, regional inequalities;

Efficient ALMP typically do not reach out to Roma in CEE (creaming off effect, biased selection, discriminatory attitudes of program implementers);

Those, which reach Roma – job creation, public work – does not support their labour market integration, contrarily constructs a parallel structure;

Important differences between Ro&Bg –Hu&Sl - Spain

There is space for perfection;

Conclusion

Exclusive ethnic targeting of employment programmes is rarely a feasible and efficient way to reach out to Roma;

Instead, targeting according to a careful combination of factors behind vulnerability (low education; age; health situation; living in marginalized regions; having small children) may lead to reaching out to a significant number of Roma.

In addition, the identification of an ethnic target (about the share of Roma on an aggregate level) of otherwise mainstreaming ALMP is desirable.

Affirmative measures resulting in Roma presence in public offices is a strong need.

The involvement / participation of Roma in the distribution of (EU) funds assigned to integration!

Conclusion: targeting

Thank you for your attention!

The report is available at:http://

cps.ceu.hu/publications/working-papers-and-reports

messingv@ceu.hu