More important to the reform of the public employment service are correct, than that it goes quickly

One should not underestimate the possibility that it can actually be worse. It noted, Oskar Nordström Skans, professor of economics at Uppsala university, at the SNS seminar on the Employment future in the week. The warning is well worth taking with him, after the government on Thursday announced that it, together with the samarbetspartierna now move forward with its reform of the authority.

for why the change is needed. Sweden stands out for its active labour market policies. Among OECD countries, only Denmark spends more. Meanwhile, the public employment service often and acrimonious criticism, from among others the Swedish national audit office. Among the public and among employers is the confidence bottenlågt.

of Course we should be able to expect a better return on our money. The centre party deserve so credit for that saw to it that a proper reform of the authority was included in the regeringsuppgörelsen. What, however, may have comments on its content and timetable.

comprehensive reform, it is in januariavtalet. It meant that large parts of the business to be privatised was clear from the beginning. It was confirmed when the minister for employment Ylva Johansson (S) laid down the government's guidelines: the public employment service should focus on the control, procurement and evaluation. The actual imparting of work and training programs operated by the private operators.

In principle, it is good: it creates competition and diversity, which can increase efficiency and quality. In practice it works, unfortunately, often worse. An overview of experience from other OECD-countries, produced by the liberal think tank Fores, shows that private brokers do not do a better job than the public. Our own ”job coaches” and ”establishment” praised nor does the market.

For a privatisation to work well requires that the incentives of the market participants is right. This puts high demands on the design of the payment system (intermediaries, for example, paid when they put a person in the work, or only when they had the job a certain period of time?) and Employment ' control capabilities.

launched already in 2021. It is soon. At the SNS seminar took note of the public Employment service's director-general Mikael Sjöberg, it means that new teams need to be in place next year, and that the money for those needs in the budget that will be fixed this autumn. Then the reform process, thus hardly come in time.

Even for the private players to scale up their activities, time is scarce.

and samarbetspartierna take advantage of the reform to make it better, and not worse? Professor Oskar Nordström Skans delivered an excellent piece of advice: implement it all step by step, test pieces in the pilot program.

in other words: make sure that the changes can be evaluated, and that there is an opportunity to re-evaluate and correct. 2021 is a better deadline to launch the first elements of the reform than the last.

a further call to action: put away the ideological blinders. Is it too hard to get to the incentives of private actors for certain parts of the business, it is perhaps better that they continue to be state.

The active labour market policy is both too important and too expensive for that we should be happy with something that just works mediocre. It also means that it is important to sjabblas away in a framhastad reform.