/ Workshop
Public Private Partnership in employment services
02 & 03 December 2010
Seoul, Republic of Korea /

This is a short overview of the conclusions that were given during the Asia-Pacific workshop. Please see the linked power point presentations for more details.

  1. Main messages and conclusions

Opening Addresses

Jeong Yeol Yang, Director Policy Division, Ministry of Employment and Labour Korea

Insoo Jeong, President of Korea Employment Information Service

Patrick Venier, Executive Secretary WAPES

The opening addresses emphasized the increased attention and emphasis that needs to be put on the topic of public-private partnership, especially taking into consideration the relative hesitant approach some public services are showing so far.
The speakers extended their thanks to all people involved in making this workshop happen.
It was underlined that the exchange of best practices is the greatest asset of events like this one and that WAPES will continue offering this platform of exchange.TheRepublic of Korea could be an excellent host for the next WAPES World Congress in 2012.

Key Note Speech on Employment Services

Donna Koeltz, Senior Expert Employment Services, International Labour Organization

  • Job-seekers are categorized into ones that can find a job mainly by themselves, those who need counselling assistance and the ones requiring for case work.
  • Employability dimensions like a clear job-objective, the right skills and the ability to maintain a job, should be supported by career counselling, vocational training and employment guidance. Those services should thus be core business of public employment services.
  • Public employment services need to remain in steer of providing the (regulatory) framework in which private actors and partnerships with them should operate.
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Presentation with best practices: Chile, Sri Lanka, China, Philippines, and Argentina

Cases from Asia

Hiromi Asano, Chief Senior Inspector for Private Employment Services, Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare Japan

Jeong Yeol Yang, Director Policy Division, Ministry of Employment and Labour Korea

Japan
  • Contracting out of IT-job portals boosted the overall number of job openings
  • An option to access the job portal in a mode for mobile phones further opens possibilities for the users.
  • Job Information Net functions also as a good marketing tool towards employers who place their jobs successfully on it.
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Presentation about the Japanese Job Information Net
Korea
  • Korea heads for a mixture of entities at federal and local level, as well as private providers to provide employment services. Their main objective is to ensure fast delivery and sufficient resources for quality.
  • Challenges in the cooperation with privates are the different management and budget cycles, the sometimes short time-to-live of private providers, and the “cherry-picking” mentality of some.
  • A standard for public-private contracts as well as a sound incentivation needs to be introduced.
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Presentation about contracting out in Korea

Cases from Pacific

Marsha Milliken, Group Manager Income Support Group, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relation Australia

Stephen Cunnigham, General Manager Employer Services, Work and Income

New Zealand

Australia
  • The delivery process of employment services includes the feedback of job seekers as a standard part.
  • The quality framework of the public employment services takes in the capability of the contracted providers, the readiness of job-seekers to engage, the delivery of the actual service, and the experience of the client.
  • The public-private partnership is driven by principles of New Public Management, such as result-orientation, network approach, clear communication plans, and tailor-made solutions instead of rapid job placement.
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Presentation on managing relationships and performance in public-private environment
New Zealand
  • The ownership of a job opening does not necessarily have to be with the public employment service.
  • The job career is built by the job seeker, not by the employment service.
  • Industry partnership programs need to make use of the own training programs that a lot of employers successfully put in place.
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Presentation on Job Matching in New Zealand

Cases from Europe

Thomas Bredgaard, Professor for Economics, Politics and Public Administration, University of AalborgDenmark

François Aventur, General Director for Studies and Evaluations, Pôle Emploi France

Dr. Werner Schelling, Senior Advisor for International Affairs,

Public Employment Service Austria

Denmark
  • Efficient employment service partnerships usually are not strictly public-private, but involve actors from the third sector as well.
  • A minimum referral rate from clients of public employment services to private providers might be helpful to encourage partnerships.
  • The need for financial survival of privates often interferes with the human capital / career guidance approach and opts for a work-first-policy instead.
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Presentation on the comparison between public and private employment services
France
  • Private providers can complement the lack of in-house skills in the public employment service and therefore widen its portfolio.
  • Contracting out does not have to include lengthy tendering.
  • Coaching and management training are nowadays two state-of-art services that can easily be contracted out.
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Presentation on partnership and contracting out in French employment service
Austria
  • Policy decisions in the Austrian public employment service are taken in a tri-partite setting and thus highly consensual and easy to implement after launching.
  • Short-term use of staff and premises in the public employment services is minimized when contracted out.
  • Private employment services can cover interesting nice markets.
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Presentation on the Austrian public employment service and its partners

Cases in Ingeus, Switzerland and Taiwan

Greg Ashmead, Managing Director Global Operations, Ingeus Ltd.

Damien Yerly, Research Collaborator Labour Market and Benefits, State Secretariat for Economy Switzerland

San Qeui-Lin, Director General, Bureau of Employment and Vocational Guidance Taiwan

Ingeus
  • Ingeus understands itself as a welfare-to-work company operating with public employment services.
  • Barriers to employment need to be identified as early as possible not only at the event of facing a particular job offer. The participation of the individual in the labour market is the highest priority.
  • The responsibility towards the tax-payer is felt in public employment services as well.
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Presentation on how to put policy into practice in employment services
Switzerland
  • Putting the integration of long-term unemployed in the scope of public-private cooperation.
  • Institutionalized cooperation with privates through an agreement between the State and the Association of Private Employment Services.
  • The principle of subsidiarity and own initiative still rules the placement practices in the Swiss employment services.
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Presentation on public-private partnership in Swiss labour market policy
Taiwan
  • Profession, enthusiasm, innovation and excel-lence are the drivers of the public employment service in Taiwan.
  • The idea of life-long guidance is clearly imple-mented.
  • To eradicate the unemployment issues funda-mentally, the government keeps its eyes on eliminating the investment barriers and promoting private-sector investments.
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Presentation on the Taiwanese public employment service
  1. Evaluation

The total average is 9,22.

We thank all the speakers, moderators and participants for their contributions!

Miguel Peromingo

WAPES Executive Secretariat

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Report Seoul