Introduction
In recent years, the idea of a job guarantee has been discussed as a possible solution to the persistent societal problem of long-term unemployment in capitalist societies. In particular for vulnerable groups, such as elderly workers and those with health impairments, the probability of re-entering the labour market is low. Often, they tend to be consistently denied access to employment and risk social exclusion (Kronauer et al., Reference Kronauer, Vogel and Gerlach1993). Tackling long-term unemployment and its negative effects on individuals remains one of the most pressing political and societal challenges which, according to its proponents, can be met with a job guarantee. Through this policy measure, the state steps in as an ‘employer of the last resort’ for those who cannot find a job on the labour market (Wray et al., Reference Wray, Dantas, Fullwiler, Tcherneva and Kelton2018). In contrast to other active labour market policies (ALMPs), a job guarantee thus does not have the aim to ultimately place unemployed individuals in non-subsidised employment, nor does it select participants for tailor-made projects. So far, the focus in research is on the effectiveness of labour market policies for labour-market integration. In contrast, evidence on the direct effects of job creation and, in particular, job guarantee programmes on the participants’ social inclusion through subsidised employment is still rare. In 2020, the Public Employment Service (PES) of Lower Austria started a pilot job guarantee project and offered subsidised and not-for-profit jobs to all long-term-unemployed (LTU) individuals in a town in Lower Austria. The job guarantee was accompanied by an evaluation study focusing on the changes the participants experienced as a result of re-employment. It looked at the implementation and outcomes of an active labour market policy scheme that provides jobs on a voluntary basis and targets all long-term-unemployed persons without selecting the participants. It analysed whether re-employment in subsidised jobs also secures the material and latent functions that have been shown for waged work in general (Jahoda, Reference Jahoda1982; Kamerāde et al., Reference Kamerāde, Wang, Burchell, Balderson and Coutts2019; Paul et al., Reference Paul, Scholl, Moser and Batinic2023).
In this contribution, we present research findings on that job guarantee project for the long-term-unemployed population in Austria. First, we are going to outline the findings from studies evaluating subsidised employment projects and explain the model of a job guarantee. We will then briefly present our theoretical approach as well as the study design and the methods of the evaluation study. In the ‘Results’ section of the paper, we will describe the way in which the pilot project implemented the idea of a job guarantee and present a typology of patterns in regard to how the scheme fits the life situations and needs of diverse participants as well as present the changes the participants experienced during a two-year period. We will conclude the article by discussing the consequences of the diversity among the participants resulting from a job offer to all long-term-unemployed individuals, pointing out the positive outcomes as well as the dilemmas and limitations of implementing a job guarantee for the long-term-unemployed population in this way.
Subsidised employment and the idea of a job guarantee for long-term-unemployed individuals
Securing access to employment is an important means of preventing poverty and social exclusion. In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, active labour market policy is accompanied by a substantial corpus of evaluation studies (e.g. Card et al., Reference Card, Kluve and Weber2018; Ebbinghaus, Reference Ebbinghaus, Ellison and Haux2020). However, the majority of evaluation studies define the efficacy of ALMPs in terms of their capacity to enhance participants’ prospective employment opportunities and facilitate their reintegration into market employment (e.g. Vooren et al., Reference Vooren2019; Harrer and Stockinger, Reference Harrer and Stockinger2022; Eppel et al., Reference Eppel, Huemer, Mahringer and Schmoigl2024). Focusing on market (re-)integration after programme participation, many studies conclude that public sector schemes and subsidised labour result in what is termed ‘churning the unemployed’ (Finn, Reference Finn1999), ‘lock-in’ effects (e.g. Vooren et al., Reference Vooren2019) or ‘programme careers’ (Harrer and Stockinger, Reference Harrer and Stockinger2022).
In contrast, our objective is to ascertain the immediate impact that subsidised employment in an active labour market policy scheme has on its participants. Such work may directly counteract socio-psychological consequences of long-term unemployment, such as lack of self-confidence, mental instability, lack of social contacts and difficulties in assessing one’s own abilities (Hausegger and Krüse, Reference Hausegger and Krüse2019). Subsidised employment has also had positive effects on the perceived social participation of long-term-unemployed persons (Ramos-Lobato, Reference Ramos Lobato2017; Aurich-Beerheide et al., Reference Aurich-Beerheide, Brussig, Gabler, Ivanov, Kirsch, Kotlenga, Langer, Nägele, Pagels, Pfeiffer and Pohlan2020). An evaluation of the Austrian Aktion 20.000, a subsidised employment programme for LTU individuals over the age of 50 years, showed that the most important criteria for participants’ satisfaction were the ability to secure a livelihood and meaningful work (Hausegger and Krüse, Reference Hausegger and Krüse2019). According to findings from Germany, the formal similarity between subsidised and ‘regular’ employment seems to be important (Kupka et al., Reference Kupka, Promberger, Lietzmann and Ramos Lobato2018). With a view to the UK, Sage (Reference Sage2018), too, states that positive effects on the health of individuals and the social costs of unemployment depend profoundly on the specific implementation of the programme and its capacity to target the complex experiences of unemployed individuals.
In Germany, the new Participation Opportunities Act of 2019 partly aims at offering participation in a ‘social’ labour market for people showing a greater distance from the general employment system (Gottschall et al., Reference Gottschall, Nivorozhkin and Promberger2022). Despite these recent innovations, long-term-unemployed women and immigrants and those with low educational levels are still underrepresented in active labour market policy measures (ibid., p. 294). In the Austrian Aktion 20.000, too, persons with only compulsory school, those over 55 years of age and persons without Austrian citizenship were underrepresented (Hausegger and Krüse, Reference Hausegger and Krüse2019). Knowledge on whether unemployed individuals perceive a publicly subsidised job as an opportunity or an imposition is still limited (Gottschall et al., Reference Gottschall, Nivorozhkin and Promberger2022).
Overall, the greater the distance from the labour market and the more severe and numerous the barriers to employment are, the more difficult it seems to be to include persons in active labour market programmes. This could be a strong argument for a job guarantee because such a scheme by definition includes all the long-term-unemployed individuals within a community or region and thus also reaches out to those distant from the labour market. A job guarantee means that the state acts as an ‘employer of last resort’ to achieve full employment and thus social inclusion through employment with a living wage (Wray et al., Reference Wray, Dantas, Fullwiler, Tcherneva and Kelton2018). In contrast to workfare, it is not about tying unemployment benefits to work (Jessop, Reference Jessop1993) but rather creating jobs in the public or non-profit sector to offer them to long-term-unemployed people on a voluntary basis. France’s Territoires Zéro Chômeur de Longue Durée (TZCLD) programme, created in 2016, allows the unemployment insurance budget to be drawn on to create additional jobs for long-term-unemployed individuals. Evaluation studies show this improves participants’ occupational careers as well as living conditions and the individuals’ financial situation, health and well-being (DARES, 2019; DARES, 2021).
Yet, including all long-term-unemployed individuals in a programme may result in quite heterogeneous groups of participants. Regarding the duration of unemployment, in Austria nearly as many long-term-unemployed people have been looking for a job for less than two years as have been for longer than two years (Statistik Austria, 2023). Concerning the qualification level, the proportion of long-term-unemployed individuals among unemployed persons with academic education or higher vocational qualifications is nearly as large as that among unemployed people lacking higher education or vocational qualifications (Wach, Reference Wach2021).
In Austria, the PES of Lower Austria initiated and financed the pilot project Modellprojekt Arbeitsplatzgarantie Marienthal (MAGMA), which was implemented in the town of Gramatneusiedl, home of the historical factory town of Marienthal and took place from October 2020 to April 2024 (AMS, 2021; ILO, 2021; OECD, 2021). A recent study of the job guarantee pilot shows positive effects on its participants (Quinz and Flecker, Reference Quinz and Flecker2023). Kasy and Lehner (Reference Kasy and Lehner2023) confirm these findings by using pairwise randomisation and a synthetic control town. The focus of this paper is on the specific implementation of the Austrian job guarantee pilot project and its capacity to cope with heterogeneity among the participants. As heterogeneity can be seen as a core characteristic of a job guarantee in general, we ask to what degree the implementation of the project fitted the needs of diverse participants.
Theoretical approach
In the study of re-employment within a job creation scheme in the context of active labour market policy, we relied on theoretical approaches to the analysis of labour markets in capitalist societies and of labour market policy. Based on Polanyi (Reference Polanyi1944) and Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990), the concept of ‘de-commodification of labour power’ is used to characterise the reduction of the need to have paid work to secure one’s survival. In addition to social security and ‘passive’ labour market policy in the form of unemployment benefits, job creation schemes as part of active labour market policies lead to such a de-commodification (Gottschall et al., Reference Gottschall, Nivorozhkin and Promberger2022; van Doorn and van Vliet, Reference van Doorn and van Vliet2024), which lends support to the notion of a ‘policy of dignity’ (Englert et al., Reference Englert, Gottwald, Globisch and Kupka2025) in active labour market policy. In contrast, a re-commodifying effect results from workfare policies (Jessop, Reference Jessop1993). In addition, labour market policies oriented towards ‘work-first’ have commodifying effects when focusing on a return to employment that does not provide a living wage and implies a risk of de-skilling. Active labour market policy, thus, tends to oscillate between de-commodification and re-commodification (Gottschall et al., Reference Gottschall, Nivorozhkin and Promberger2022). The concept of a job guarantee, in contrast, implies a full de-commodification of labour power while still aiming at social inclusion through paid work. Therefore, it makes sense to analyse the effectiveness of such a programme not in relation to labour market integration but to manifest and latent functions employment in general tends to fulfil.
As a consequence, we use the concept of latent functions of employment, first developed by Marie Jahoda (Reference Jahoda1982), for the analysis of the effects of subsidised re-employment within the job guarantee scheme on long-term-unemployed people. Jahoda (Reference Jahoda1982) stressed that, apart from income, paid work also contributes to well-being and mental health because it enables workers to gain important experiences, such as first a time structure dividing the day. Employment, second, makes it possible to be active on a regular basis and, third, allows for social contacts beyond the family. Fourth, in a work society, employment leads to social recognition. Fifth, Jahoda’s concept of latent functions of employment points to the possible experience to contribute to collective goals. While these socio-psychological functions of employment have been confirmed in various studies, recent research suggests ‘experiencing competence’, in the sense of feeling effective and having an impact on the environment, is an additional latent function (Zechmann and Paul, Reference Zechmann and Paul2019). To add this dimension within our study, we used the concept of self-efficacy, defined as a conviction to be able to overcome challenges (Bandura, Reference Bandura1997). Overall, unemployment implies a lack of the socio-psychological functions just mentioned and negatively impacts mental health and well-being (Jahoda, Larzarsfeld and Zeisel, Reference Jahoda, Lazarsfeld and Zeisel1975; Jahoda, Reference Jahoda1982; Zechmann and Paul, Reference Zechmann and Paul2019; Kamerāde et al., Reference Kamerāde, Wang, Burchell, Balderson and Coutts2019), effects that are also related to the duration of unemployment (Paul and Moser, Reference Paul and Moser2009). Conversely, re-employment can be assumed to provide these functions again.
Methods
In our study, we employed a holistic methodological approach to understand the changes that long-term-unemployed individuals experience owing to re-employment and the potential of a job guarantee programme to provide the latent functions of employment. To do so, we adopted a longitudinal mixed-methods design, integrating quantitative and qualitative methods, with an emphasis on the latter, to obtain a comprehensive understanding (Tashakkori et al., Reference Tashakkori, Teddlie, Burke and Wright2015) of the implications of the job guarantee implementation. The study, entitled Marienthal.reversed, was conducted from October 2020 to April 2023. As an external formative evaluation study (Döring, Reference Döring, Baur and Blasius2014), it was designed to accompany the job guarantee project MAGMA and aimed to gradually improve the ongoing project by keeping the stakeholders up to date on interim findings (ibid.).
For organisational reasons related to the PES, participants could not be contacted before the project started. In addition, detailed information about the project was not yet available, so it would not have been possible to obtain informed consent from potential participants before they were enrolled in the project. Considering the vulnerable nature of potential participants, it was ethically imperative that they be thoroughly informed about the study, their privacy and their rights prior to each single wave of data collection. Therefore, data on the situation during unemployment had to be collected retrospectively in the first wave, with a delay of about two months, immediately after the official start of the job guarantee scheme.
To understand the specific institutional implementation and possible changes of the job guarantee programme, we regularly conducted expert interviews at different institutional levels. To ‘reversely’ analyse the changes occurring in the transition from long-term unemployment to subsidised employment over time, qualitative interviews were repeatedly used to reconstruct the lived experiences of the participants and to reach a deeper understanding of their subjective views. Moreover, standardised questionnaires were repeatedly employed to inform and complement the qualitative panel so that all initial participants could be covered and to triangulate with the qualitative findings. For both research instruments, we drew on a large body of research following Jahoda’s latent functions of employment (e.g. Jahoda, Reference Jahoda1982; Wood and Burchell, Reference Wood, Burchell and Lewis2018; Zechmann and Paul, Reference Zechmann and Paul2019; Paul et al., Reference Paul, Scholl, Moser and Batinic2023). They were designed to assess the subjective perceptions of the participants regarding the dimensions as described in the theory section. Moreover, the qualitative analyses also enabled an inductive development of additional categories that were relevant to the study, such as ‘stabilisation’ or ‘future prospects’.
Given our interest in the implications of the implementation of the programme for its participants over a two-year period, our focus is on the forty-twoFootnote 1 individuals who entered the programme at its outset and thus could be observed over time. According to the longitudinal and sequential mixed-methods design, comparative data were collected at different points in time. A total of thirty-eight out of the forty-two initial participants completed the first standardised questionnaire. This information was used to inform the qualitative sampling regarding the socio-economic characteristics of the participants as well as their initial perceptions of the project. Subsequently, problem-centred qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty-five out of thirty-eight participants who were initially involved in the study. Two years later, a second wave of qualitative interviews was conducted with eighteen out of the twenty-five participants initially interviewed. As the last survey was conducted about a year prior to the project’s termination, we registered the effects during the job guarantee period. However, it was not possible to ascertain whether satisfaction declined closer to the program’s termination. Additionally, standardised interviews were conducted with approximately two-thirds of the initial thirty-eight participants in winter 2021 and 2022.
Given that we were able to collect a greater number of qualitative interviews than initially planned, the discrepancy between the two sample sizes is not as pronounced as it might otherwise have been. The longitudinal survey covered both the participants still attending the programme at later stages and those who had already left MAGMA, mainly due to a new job or retirement. In contrast, individuals leaving due to illness or dismissal or because they moved away are underrepresented in the study. Overall, the study is based on comparative data from thirty-six qualitative and seventy-five quantitative interviews conducted over two years with thirty-eight heterogenous participants, including those who are particularly vulnerable in the labour market.
A longitudinal qualitative analysis of the data was conducted using the coding strategy of grounded theory (Lück-Filsinger, Reference Lück-Filsinger, Giel, Klockgether and Mäder2016) and the typification approach outlined by Kelle and Kluge (Reference Kelle and Kluge2010). Descriptive analyses of the quantitative data informed the sampling for the qualitative data collection and served to complement the rich qualitative results. Overall, the study followed the methodological approach of ‘understanding’ sociology according to Max Weber (Reference Weber1904) and Alfred Schütz (Reference Schütz1971). Thus, the effects of re-employment and the changes the MAGMA scheme brought about were not derived from a control group comparison but mainly by analysing the participants’ lived experiences and by reconstructing the changes in their lives that could be attributed to the ALMP scheme. To do so, we also relied on expert interviews and information about the societal and economic context of the programme.
Results
The form of implementation of a job guarantee
In 2020, the PES of Lower Austria commissioned itworks, a social enterprise specialised in active labour market policy measures, to implement and manage the job guarantee pilot project. From October 2020 to April 2024, all long-term job seekers who were registered with PES and had their main residence in Gramatneusiedl were offered the opportunity to voluntarily take on a subsidised job. The duration of the project was considerably longer than that of other labour market policy measures. The contract between PES and itworks included the goal of not only employing participants in not-for-profit activities but also placing 28 per cent of the participants in jobs on the general labour market.
In accordance with the composition of long-term unemployment in general, the initial cohort of participants was quite diverse. It exhibited a range of different durations of unemployment, mainly spanning a period of two to five years, with some individuals having been unemployed for a shorter duration and others for longer periods. The occupations the participants last pursued showed a broad spectrum and educational levels, too, varied considerably. While some participants held a university diploma, one-third of all participants had completed compulsory education. The initial cohort of participants showed a slightly stronger representation of men than women. Older age was more frequent, but all age groups from eighteen to sixty-five years were represented.
The pilot project started with eight weeks of mandatory participation in a preparatory measure, which was designed to improve the participants’ health and subjective well-being as well as determine and expand various skills in different workshops to ascertain the potential of the diverse participants. After that initial period, the participants were invited to sign an employment contract with itworks. Due to the sector-level collective agreement, the participants received a wage at least equal to the amount of the unemployment benefit they had previously been receiving, including special payments and social security contributions. The working hours were adapted to the participants’ capabilities and varied between sixteen hours and thirty-eight and a half hours, which was crucial to providing all of them with paid work. The participants pursued individually tailored activities in various smaller projects, which they could also change over time. The work included carpentry, gardening, workshop and housing renovation, handicraft and office administration. Most activities within MAGMA were commissioned by the local council. During the entire project, the participants received intensive supervision and support from itworks counsellors and skilled social workers. The participants were also invited to contribute their ideas for job creation. This resulted, for example, in an online Topotheque of the town or individual participants supporting other participants in learning German or acquiring IT skills.
Few participants worked as agency workers in public institutions such as the local nursery or a nonprofit association. Moreover, the participants received placement support because, due to the temporary character of MAGMA, an important aim was also to achieve integration into non-subsidised jobs outside of the project. By the conclusion of the project, one-third of the participants in total had transitioned into market employment, partly supported by job subsidies to employers. This result exceeded the expectations of itworks and the PES.
As a flagship initiative, the project also received considerable attention in the public media. While some participants leveraged the public attention from the beginning to enhance their employment prospects in the labour market, others expressed discontent with the attention drawn to their involvement in the project and thus to their long-term unemployment. As a result of numerous favourable reports over time, media attention became less of a problem for the participants.
Overall, several features of the job guarantee’s implementation proved helpful in dealing with the diversity among the group of participants. These include the adaptation of working hours mainly to the health of participants or care obligations, the invitation to bring in suggestions regarding work activities, the intensive individual counselling provided by the social workers, a variety of work activities and tasks and the possibility to change working groups and to take on other tasks over time. Some limitations were evident as well. For instance, the prospect of working as an agency worker in a public institution was exceedingly unlikely. Consequently, working activities were largely confined to the non-profit employment project.
Heterogeneity as a challenge: Was the measure appropriate for all?
The inclusion of all long-term-unemployed individuals in a community and the ensuing heterogeneity among the participants can be seen as a core characteristic of a job guarantee in general. In the following, we therefore answer the following question: To what degree did the project fit the needs and expectations of diverse participants?
To establish how appropriate this form of implementation of a job guarantee was for different groups of people, we analysed participants’ life situations, needs and expectations of and benefits from the project looking at their lived experiences and reported changes over two years. This resulted in different patterns that can be summarised into three distinct types, developed on on the basis of longitudinal qualitative data from a sample of eighteen intervieweesFootnote 2 with varying histories of participation during the lifetime of the project. The main criteria for the following typology, which has been developed inductively, are threefold: the extent of barriers, subjective expectations and changes over time. The following Table 1 presents the participants socio-economic profiles across the three types.
Table 1. Overview of the qualitative panel sample by type
The first type, ‘consistent fit for the imagined target’ group, was the most frequent pattern with ten out of eighteen respondents. From the beginning, the project fitted their needs as well as their expectations, yet the match and their satisfaction further increased over time. Even though the interviewees’ initial life situations varied within this type, they shared particularly poor prospects of getting an unsubsidised job due to combinations of hindering factors ranging from poor health to care obligations or older age. For some, the exclusion from the labour market followed discontinuous employment paths and led to a feeling of powerlessness and sometimes resignation. In the words of Adriana, the situation can be described as follows: ‘You no longer see any possibilities for yourself […] and because of the project, the world around you is bigger again.’ (Wave 1, Pos. 316).
Having had a long continuous employment path before, others accepted their lack of labour market prospects due to their age and state of health yet were able to maintain an active everyday life and social contacts during unemployment. For all of them, the job guarantee project was a chance to either work in the non-profit employment project while pursuing future prospects or to bridge the gap to retirement through a useful paid activity. Moreover, these participants benefited from support and counselling provided by the social workers, which went beyond work-related issues because the factors hindering their transition to the general labour market were complex. Jana, for example, said: ‘I think it’s good that people here really help you in all situations, not just when you’re looking for work […] and there’s actually always someone there, who really looks at what you need.’ (Wave 3, Pos. 76).
The combination of offering employment directly, which considered the participants’ needs and possibilities (instead of placement efforts), and accompanying support and counselling enabled them not only to transition from unemployment to employment but also to develop individually during their participation in the project. Over time, participants of this type developed new capabilities and prospects, received the support they needed and got meaningful work in the non-profit employment project. The fit even improved over time owing to the opportunities to learn something new, their inclusion in teamwork and their doing work that was useful to others. In most cases, this type of participant retired during the project’s lifetime or remained in the project until the end with rather uncertain prospects for future participation in the labour market. Therefore, the time limitation of the project was seen negatively by many in this group.
The second type, ‘improved fit over time’, was the smallest subgroup with three out of eighteen interviewees. They shared their life situation as well as poor labour market prospects with the first type but showed greater hope in their future prospects and therefore also higher expectations due to exceptional social or better financial support. First, the project did not seem to be suitable for them because it did not meet their occupational preferences, which led to disappointment. However, as a result of experiences of success in the project and a range of beneficial impacts over time, the project turned out to fit their expectations more and more. In particular, the match could be improved by changes in work activities and the support they received from their project managers to find and nourish their skills. In this way, they got access to work tasks which allowed them to enjoy work and feel needed by others. Richard, for example, told us: ‘I do cleaning, woodwork, and sanitation work. Actually, I do everything. I’m talented with my hands. I’m crafty. I’m needed around here.’ (Wave 3, Pos. 34).
These participants also benefitted from the mutual help they received within the project, the recognition their activities gained in the community and the development of personal skills. Overall, the flexibility in the adaptation of work tasks as well as the guidance and support made the project more appropriate for that group of people. The third type, ‘consistent mismatch with occupational identity’, was a small subgroup of five out of eighteen participants, who all held higher vocational or professional qualifications and had many years of occupational experience. Mainly, care obligations and work-related illnesses, old age or poor health had made their re-entry into employment difficult. Nevertheless, the labour market impediments were fewer in number and less intricate for this type of interviewees than for the other types. They expected and demanded a job in line with their qualifications and experiences and were more strongly oriented towards the general labour market. Even over time, in their view, the work in the non-profit employment project could not meet these expectations. Isabella, for example, expressed her disappointment as follows: ‘For me, a job guarantee means that they show you a loophole so that you can get back into the world of work more easily. But that’s not the case [here, HQ].’ (Wave 1, Pos. 467).
Despite positive impacts for them in terms of income or social contacts, the project did not fit their occupational expectations. They perceived MAGMA as a project for vulnerable and needy people with whom they did not identify. Their orientation, therefore, was clearly on a transition to the general labour market. Middle-aged participants of this type succeeded in finding non-subsidised employment, while those close to retirement did not. However, this type also pointed to the fact that, while the project could not offer work for all occupational groups, it was nevertheless better for them than long-term unemployment.
Overall, the job guarantee project was found to align with the needs and expectations of the majority of participants either right from the beginning or over time, despite the significant heterogeneity among them. A clear majority stated that the tasks fitted their knowledge and skills, and they could identify with their work. One expectation, in particular, was exceeded – more people said their personal health situation was duly considered than initially expected. This also applied to considerations taken for care responsibilities. For some (type 3), the job guarantee programme offered an alternative to long-term unemployment as well as some positive changes; however, it was not a suitable fit for their expectations regarding their professional advancement.
The impacts of re-employment through a job guarantee – an overview
In the following, we will give an overview of the changes the participants experienced owing to and during re-employment in MAGMA. Owing to the change from unemployment benefits to an income based on a collective agreement, the financial situation of most participants improved. While during unemployment only less than one-third was able to put aside money at the end of the month, after two years this was possible for two-thirds of the participants. Both income poverty and material deprivation could be reduced for those affected. The financial improvements in combination with individual (debt) counselling helped to stabilise the participants’ lives.
Regarding health, after two years, fewer people said they often felt ill. In particular, mental health improved considerably, partly owing to fewer worries and no risk of losing the job because of illness. A strong impact could be found on well-being. While many participants had little hope and suffered from a lack of perspective before the project, access to employment despite health issues, regular activities and subjectively meaningful work contributed to increased well-being, particularly as the project progressed. However, the change in well-being differed according to the types presented above.
All participants reported more numerous occupational as well as private social contacts and, in many cases, the quality of the latter also improved. This is due to, first, the many new contacts within the project and close acquaintanceships or even friendships that developed with other participants. The diversity among the participants resulted in contacts with persons with different characteristics and social backgrounds, which turned out to be helpful also regarding private problems, e.g., looking for housing. Second, respondents reported improved relations within the family because they could now share their new experiences, as well as receive familial support in the case of challenges at work. Third, financial improvements allowed the participants to expand their leisure activities, which had a positive impact on their social contacts.
While having felt devalued during unemployment, people now experienced more social recognition simply owing to the fact of having a job and no longer belonging to the unemployed population. While only 40 per cent of participants felt recognised while unemployed, more than 80 per cent did so after two years of re-employment. However, a work task participants perceived as inappropriate could restrict the feeling of being recognised, or even be experienced as disrespect. A particularly strong impact could be observed regarding self-efficacy. While initially less than half of the participants showed high self-efficacy, more than three-quarters did so after two years. The findings show that the financial improvements, increased self-efficacy and occupational experiences within the project bettered the future prospects of the formerly unemployed persons.
In conclusion, the job guarantee project yielded numerous favourable outcomes for the participants. Given the diversity of the participants, the positive changes observed varied according to their circumstances during the period of unemployment. Those who were financially deprived and lacked external support derived greater benefits from the project than those who were financially supported by their families. In addition, those with significant health limitations and diminished well-being during unemployment exhibited greater gains than others. While all participants benefited from new social contacts, those with no or few pre-existing social connections demonstrated more pronounced positive changes. Those with limited expectations of the job guarantee due to unstable employment histories before unemployment were more likely to experience increased social recognition in comparison to individuals with more extensive professional experiences. Additionally, an enhancement in self-efficacy and future prospects was particularly associated with heightened adversity during unemployment and a more pronounced combination of obstacles pertaining to future labour market prospects. Overall, while not all the participants benefitted from the scheme to the same extent, the positive changes predominate.
Summary and Conclusions
This contribution describes the implementation and the effects of a job guarantee scheme in which all long-term-unemployed persons in the town of Gramatneusiedl, Austria, were offered subsidised employment in a non-profit setting. In contrast to most active labour market policies, it was not the main goal of this scheme to reach labour-market integration of the participants. Rather, it aimed at eliminating long-term unemployment in a community by creating and providing good jobs for everyone excluded from the general labour market. In doing so and through the support from social workers, it strived to counter the social and individual effects of long-term unemployment on people directly (AMS, 2021). Nevertheless, the actual implementation of the job guarantee presented in this paper can be seen as a mixture of a job guarantee according to the textbook (Wray et al., Reference Wray, Dantas, Fullwiler, Tcherneva and Kelton2018; Tcherneva, Reference Tcherneva2020) and a transitional employment project aiming at labour market integration. Job placement was part of the programme, and the participants received counselling to take up employment in the general labour market. The scheme also offered wage subsidies as incentives to employers to hire participants.
The accompanying evaluation study contributes to the discussion of the possibilities and limitations of the practical implementation of a job guarantee for long-term-unemployed individuals. While most evaluation studies of active labour market policies look at labour market integration, our contribution lies in the strong focus on the effects of direct re-employment in a not-for-profit setting. More specifically, it also goes beyond existing studies on the MAGMA example (see Quinz and Flecker, Reference Quinz and Flecker2023; Kasy and Lehner, Reference Kasy and Lehner2023) by focusing on the implications of the heterogeneity within the group of participants which can be expected to be a core characteristic of a job guarantee scheme that does not select participants. This is important because it results in the challenge to offer suitable tasks to people with different education and skills, who are in different life situations and have different needs.
Overall, our findings suggest positive effects of the pilot project on the previously long-term-unemployed participants in terms of their financial situation, health, well-being and self-efficacy. The latent functions of employment according to Jahoda (Reference Jahoda1982) and in particular social inclusion and perceived social recognition could be achieved to a large extent for most participants. The results corroborate those previously reported by Quinz and Flecker (Reference Quinz and Flecker2023) and Kasy and Lehner (Reference Kasy and Lehner2023). However, our main findings also demonstrate the differences within the diverse cohort of participants and illustrate their evolution over time.
This was in particular achieved by a typology focusing on how the scheme fitted the diverse participants’ needs and expectations also reflecting on the development of those over time. We found three distinct types of participants. Type 1, referred to as the ‘consistent fit for the imagined target’ group, is the most frequent pattern, shown by ten out of eighteen persons. The project not only fitted their needs and expectations, but their satisfaction further increased over time. Type 2, called ‘improved fit over time’, presents the situation of a very small subgroup, three out of eighteen, which changed considerably when they got the meaningful work they lacked at the beginning. Thus, a better fit could be achieved by adaptations within the project. In contrast, the fit of type 3, which we named ‘consistent mismatch with the occupational identity’, could not be improved over time. While the participation resulted in positive effects even for them, these participants lacked the opportunity for professional development and, in addition, they did not at all identify with the other participants.
Our findings indicate that such a job guarantee programme is able to reach more individuals among vulnerable groups than other subsidised employment programmes (see Hausegger and Krüse, Reference Hausegger and Krüse2019; Gottschall et al., Reference Gottschall, Nivorozhkin and Promberger2022) because it does not select participants but offers a job to everyone within the community who has been unemployed long term. The measure seems particularly suitable for integrating persons who do not find employment due to health impairments, lack of skills, or care obligations. Importantly, this success was largely achieved by adapting work and working hours to the capabilities and needs of people over time. However, one limitation in this respect was that the project only addressed registered job seekers and, in contrast to the French example of TZCLD, did not try to integrate those out of the labour force.
As a job guarantee measure providing subsidised not-for-profit employment, such a project deviates from jobs on the general labour market in several respects. For many, these differences were welcome, for example, when it came to the consideration shown for health impairments or stable, although temporary employment and supported a ‘policy of dignity’ (Englert, Reference Englert, Gottwald, Globisch and Kupka2025). Yet, many at the same time saw it as a second-best solution which received less social recognition than a ‘real job’. This points to the dilemma of recognition within such programmes, as people are employed in a scheme for long-term-unemployed individuals. As Jahoda (Reference Jahoda, Bacher, Kannonier-Finster and Ziegler2019) already found when analysing a job creation project in the 1930s, from the workers’ point of view the jobs lacked societal and economic reality. In the beginning, the dilemma was even intensified by the extensive publicity surrounding the pilot project but could be alleviated over time. For one subgroup in our sample, not being a ‘real job’ fully overshadowed the assessment of the project. While this supports the argument that subsidised employment should be as similar to ‘regular’ employment as possible (Kupka et al., Reference Kupka, Promberger, Lietzmann and Ramos Lobato2018), it is also important to note that the largest subgroup longed for the de-commodification made possible by the project and for whom the general labour market is no longer a yardstick. As the typology shows, the element of time is crucial, as positive changes unfold over time.
The heterogeneity of participants of a job guarantee for all long-term-unemployed people raises the question of whether it makes sense to include all in one scheme instead of offering tailor-made projects to different groups. While the heterogeneity was a challenge for the implementation, it also had benefits for the participants and the project because different people contributed different skills that complemented each other, or over time the recognition of the project benefited from not being limited to participants who are very distant from the labour market. More importantly, the duration of unemployment turned out not to be a valid indicator alone on which to base the separation of participants and to predict the individual developments during the project’s lifetime. A job guarantee allows individual capabilities to be considered and developed over time while participants are already in employment and experience individual and social benefits. However, to avoid the disadvantages of such an inclusive approach, the measure needs to be permeable towards training programmes in particular for those striving for occupational advancement and combined with placement activities, thus pursuing a flexible approach (Finn, Reference Finn1999). This is necessary because not all persons administratively labelled as ‘long-term unemployed’ need and want an ‘employer of last resort’ – or do not want it yet.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank the Public Employment Service of Lower Austria for the cooperation in the research project and Claudia Spengler, Paul Malschinger and Diana Latzko, as well as the students of the Marienthal.reversed seminar at the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna who helped collect and analyse the data. Moreover, we want to thank the participants who gave us interviews and thereby contributed their time and knowledge to enable this paper. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Competing interests
The author(s) declare none.
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