Why decentralise the public employment service? What are the reasons for the increasing reliance on local management approaches in designing and implementing employment policies? These trends are not merely institutional changes, rather they reflect a change in strategy. To enhance the effectiveness of employment policy, governments attempt to provide greater flexibility in implementation, adapt national policies to local conditions, and stimulate involvement from all stakeholders. The impact of these reforms is widespread. They effect the role of the state, the division of power between government layers, and, most of all, employment itself.

This book provides the most comprehensive set of employment practices and experiences currently implemented in 26 countries available to date. A wide range of area-based approaches illustrates the need for flexible and specific answers to adapt to local conditions. To complete the picture, summary chapters outline new trends and common challenges governments face in designing and optimising employment policy decentralisation. It brings together papers from a Conference held in Venice in April 1998. [Decentralising Employment Policy: New Trends and Challenges] is essential reading for policy-makers, practitioners and all local actors involved in employment policies.