Seminar│Employment Policy and Professional Reintegration

The principal function of social policies has traditionally been to guarantee all citizens some level of income. More and more, however, contemporary social policy is also expected to play a leading role in the promotion of employment, notably via policies which assist professional reintegration. For a long time, such policies were reserved for the unemployed, but they are now aimed at broader groups within society: recipients of social assistance or disability insurance payments, older workers, young people who have dropped out of the education system, single parents, etc. The promotion of employment is becoming an ever more central task of social policy. However, several trends in today’s working environment have made this task very difficult, such as the decline in manufacturing industries and the constant striving for efficiency gains. To be effective, policies for professional reintegration must be properly adapted to the socio-economic framework within which they operate. The great challenge is to maintain, and hopefully increase, the number of jobs in a context where labour markets are becoming ever more exclusive.

This seminar is based upon policy experiments in Switzerland and abroad (USA, UK, Netherlands, Scandinavia). It aims to provide participants with state-of-the-art knowledge about policies on employment and professional reintegration and will give them the tools with which to examine the problems inherent in designing and implementing such policies.

• Understand the social and economic effects of transformations in the labour market;
• Understand how employment and professional reintegration policies actually work;
• Examine the measures adopted abroad and in Switzerland, notably with regards to their effectiveness;
• Identify examples of best practices;
• Raise awareness about the difficulties involved in implementing and evaluating policies on professional reintegration.

• Professionals with responsibilities in the social field (Federal Social Insurance Office, departments/offices of social affairs in cantons and towns);
• Professionals with responsibilities in the employment field (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, cantonal employment offices, regional employment offices);
• Professionals responsible for designing and implementing policies for professional reintegration within the frameworks of unemployment insurance, social assistance and invalidity insurance;
• Professionals working in field of social action in the not-for-profit sector;
• Researchers and scientific collaborators in the field of employment policy in universities and research institutes, public authorities, trades unions, employers’ associations, etc.

The seminar combines theoretical contributions on the transformation of the labour market and how professional reintegration works with practical examples taken from reintegration programmes. The emphasis is put on the structures of those programmes and on evaluating the effectiveness.

Participants who actively take part in the whole seminar will be awarded a certificate of attendance by IDHEAP.

The fee for the entire seminar is CHF 1,400. This price includes all the written documentation, lunches and coffee breaks. Any participants deciding to withdraw from the seminar in the three weeks preceding its commencement will be charged 10% for administrative costs.