Job clubs examined

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In April 2004, new legislation in Poland amended the framework for 'job clubs', schemes organised by county labour offices and various organisations collaborating with them that help unemployed people improve their job-seeking skills. In 2003, job clubs attracted some 60,000 participants, but their effectiveness has not been regarded as high, due to staffing problems and the variable contents of courses. Trade unions may collaborate in organising job clubs, but reportedly take only a limited interest.

'Job clubs' (Kluby pracy) are organised by county labour offices (Powiatowe Urzędy Pracy, PUP) and by various institutions collaborating with them, such as trade unions. The labour offices operate on the basis of the Act regarding employment and counteraction of unemployment, and offer labour market intermediation/placement services and organise training for unemployed people.

The job clubs hold group sessions during which job-finding techniques and other skills needed to succeed in the labour market are taught to participants. The various activities are tailored primarily for unemployed people who are encountering difficulty in finding a new job and who, accordingly, want to improve their chances in the labour market.

The basic objective of the job clubs is to stimulate and motivate unemployed people to greater activity in their job search, and also to furnish them with the necessary information and skills. A particular target group for the job clubs are people who have been without jobs for long periods of time and those who have only recently entered the labour market. Importantly, the job clubs do not handle actual job offers, only assisting their members in looking for gainful employment. Membership is open to all, irrespective of their age or education level. All job club courses and sessions are free of charge.

Organisers and participants

There were 620 job clubs operating in Poland in 2003. Of this number, 543 (87.6%) operated within the county labour offices and the remaining 77 were managed by assorted institutions and organisations collaborating with these offices. Of the 59,891 registered job club members, 55,489 (92.7%) were unemployed.

There was no major change in the number of job clubs in comparison with 2002 (when there were 640 active job clubs - 3.2% more than in 2003). This indicates that the downward tendency observed since 2001, when there were 769 job clubs, was virtually halted (between 2001 and 2002, the number of clubs had dropped by 20%). There was increasing enrolment in the job clubs in 2003, with the number of participants growing by 4.4% on the 2002 figure.

While the job club is designed by law as a fully-fledged instrument for the vocational 'activation' of unemployed people, the activities of the clubs have been less than continuous. The single most frequent reason that job clubs are closed down is financial difficulties plaguing the local labour office concerned, which lacks the funds needed to retain appropriate staff. Some job club leaders are involved in subsidised projects, giving their activities a distinctly periodic character; thus, some job clubs work in 'start-and-stall' cycles coinciding with the availability of staff members who combine job club duties with other work for the labour office. Quite frequently, a person will hold parallel posts in a job club and in another capacity, or alternate between the job club and other job counselling work. In many county labour offices, these different duties - relating to the job club and otherwise - are handled by a single employee.

Unemployed job club participants

Of the 55,489 participants in job club projects in 2003 who were registered as unemployed: more than 60% were women; 38% were residents of rural areas; 60% were aged 24 or below; 44% were school-leavers; 27% had been out of work for over a year; and just over 2% had disabilities. Most of these statistics for 2003 were roughly similar to those for 2002, although the participation of school-leavers and of young people aged 24 and below dropped markedly in 2003 (by 12.3% and 9.4% respectively).

As mentioned, the majority of job club participants were women. However, 2003 continued a trend towards gender parity among job club members. Overall, the job club programmes were used primarily by people falling within the age ranges of 18-24 and 25-34; taken together, these two categories accounted for over 79% of the combined job club enrolment.

As in 2002, the largest single category of job club participants in terms of education was comprised of people with post-secondary and vocational education, and also with basic secondary education. More than 63% of all participants did not have any previous work experience.

The above indicates that a 'typical' job club member is female, aged 18 to 24, educated to post-secondary or vocational level, without previous job experience and unemployed for at least six months.

Effectiveness of job clubs

Job club participants have demonstrated a high degree of perseverance, with more than 95% attending to the end of their course. According to a report published by the Ministry of the Economy and Labour (Ministerstwo Gospodarki i Pracy, MGiP), in 2003 some 10,510 unemployed people who had attended at least half the sessions comprising the job club course they signed up for took up gainful employment within three months of completing that course. This translates into an employment rate among such job club participants of just over 21% - very similar to the 2002 figure. Only 4,977 job club participants (some 10% of the total) went on to pursue further training to augment, increase or change their qualifications.

In attempting to explain what might be seen as the rather unimpressive effectiveness of the job clubs, the authors of the Ministry of the Economy and Labour report cite two factors. The first relates to staff shortages and the lack of job club leaders. As stated above, many of the club leaders also work in other capacities, and on average the job club accounts for no more than 20%-30% of their working time. Understandably enough, the small number of club instructors and their strained schedules damage the job clubs’ effectiveness.

The second factor relates to the fact that no single, unequivocal definition of the job club concept had been formulated. As a result, the work pursued within the clubs covers many different topics, to a varying level of quality. For most of the county labour offices, work within the job club boils down to a few days’ worth of sessions comprising general lectures or narrowly specialised instruction. It is only the occasional job club that follows the standard three-week curriculum, composed of two weeks’ systematic instruction in labour market skills followed by a week during which the participants, observed and tutored by a job club leader, try to put these skills to good use in their job hunting.

New Act

A new legislative Act regarding employment and counteraction of unemployment, adopted in April 2004, includes provisions which, its authors hope, will remedy at least some of the problems outlined above. Under previous regulations, the job club was defined rather loosely as 'sessions for unemployed persons geared to acquiring skills for seeking and securing employment'. The new Act defines the services rendered by job clubs as 'aid in the active search for work'. This aid can assume a variety of forms, such as training in job-hunting skills, brief activation workshops, or provision of access to information and databases relevant to job seeking and/or to self-employment. There are plans for increasing this specialisation, with the desired effect of creating greater consistency in job club services among local labour offices around the country. Some importance will attach to a more accurate statutory definition of the role and responsibilities of the job club leader; in the Act, they are named among the six categories of public employment service personnel whose qualifications, tasks, and additional remuneration are to be governed by separate ordinances.

Commentary

The usefulness of job club-type schemes in the activation of unemployed people has been convincingly proved, and they constitute an important part of labour market systems in many countries. The degree to which job clubs are utilised in Poland, however, remains unsatisfactory; as of yet, this form of aid is extended to few people, and the track records of job clubs operated by state employment offices as well as by other institutions remains inadequate. Further, the modest interest on the part of the social partners - first and foremost of the trade unions - in job clubs comes as an unpleasant surprise.

It is to be hoped that the newly adopted statutory solutions can bring about an increase in the number of job clubs and an improvement in the quality and effects of their work. This applies especially to increasing the vocational status of the job club leader; one would hope that the duties of a job club leader will no longer be an unwelcome added burden imposed on an overworked labour office staff member, but become a bona fide job in its own right. (Rafał Towalski, Institute of Public Affairs [Instytut Spraw Publicznych, ISP] and Warsaw School of Economics [Szkoła Główna Handlowa, SGH])