1887

OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected labour market, social policy and migration studies prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language - English or French - with a summary in the other.

English, French

Faces of joblessness in Spain

A people-centred perspective on employment barriers and policies

In the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis, large shares of working-age individuals in Spain either did not work or only to a limited extent. As the employment rate bottomed out in 2013, 30% were without employment during the entire year, and a further 15% had weak labour-market attachment, working only a fraction of the year, or on restricted working hours. This paper applies a novel method for measuring and visualising employment barriers of individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment, using household micro-data. It first develops indicators to quantify employment obstacles under three broad headings: (i) work-related capabilities, (ii) incentives, and (iii) employment opportunities. It then uses these indicators in conjunction with a statistical clustering approach to identify unobserved (“latent”) groups of individuals facing similar combinations of barriers. The resulting typology of labour-market difficulties provides insights on the most pressing policy priorities in supporting different groups into employment. A detailed policy discussion illustrates how these empirical results can inform people-centred assessments of existing labour-market integration measures and of key challenges across different policy areas and institutions. The most common employment obstacles in Spain were a lack of work experience, low education and skill levels, and scarce job opportunities. Although financial disincentives, health limitations and care responsibilities were less widespread overall, they remained important barriers for some groups. A striking finding is that 45% of jobless or low-intensity workers face three or more simultaneous barriers, highlighting the limits of narrow policy approaches that focus on subsets of these employment obstacles in isolation.

English

JEL: J8: Labor and Demographic Economics / Labor Standards: National and International; H31: Public Economics / Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents / Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Household; J6: Labor and Demographic Economics / Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers; C38: Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables / Classification Methods; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Models; J2: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demand and Supply of Labor
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