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Quasi-Markets in Employment Policy: Do They Deliver on Promises?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Thomas Bredgaard  and
Flemming Larsen
Thomas Bredgaard
Affiliation:
Centre for Labour Market Research at Aalborg University (CARMA), Fibigerstraede 1, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark E-mail: thomas@socsci.aau.dk, flemlar@socsci.aau.dk
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Abstract

This article focuses on the contracting-out of Public Employments Services. Quasi-markets promise to deliver more efficient, effective and de-bureaucratised employment services. By comparing experiences from Holland, Australia and Denmark we investigate whether quasi-markets deliver on promises. Quasi-market models have difficulties in living up to the preconditions for a well-functioning market and political expectations. Efficiency gains and cost-savings are still largely unknown. Instead it is clear that quasi-markets create a new type of employment policy, and new conditions for governing the labour market and employment policy. Clouded in the ‘technical’ language of improved efficiency and effectiveness, such changes are often neglected and depoliticised.

Type
Themed Section on The Governance of Activation
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 341 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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