Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

39
differences in characteristics that affect the employment outcome can remain. As a result
it is likely that the matching performed does not fully diminish potential bias arising from
these other sources.
Some raw statistics suggesting the positive effect of Jobstart upon employment were
presented in the Working Nation policy document, however no more systematic
evaluation evidence was presented. The raw post-programme employment share, derived
from the quarterly Post Programme Survey [PPM], showed that for 1996 there were 41.1
per cent of Jobstart participants in unsubsidised employment over the 12 months to
September 1992 (DEETYA (1996) p53 Table 4.5). This was higher than the employment
share for the training programmes Jobskills and NWO 13 . The employment effect was not
evaluated further with any modelling.
A further evaluation of Jobstart in 1997 14 also used the matching design. Again age, sex
and unemployment duration were used for matching with other factors such as education
and location not accounted for, as these were not deemed as important to describing
employment outcomes. 15 Using administrative data, participants were matched to a
comparison group of non-participants. Jobstart participants had post-programme
employment 3 months after the programme of 50 per cent while the matched
comparisons had 22 per cent, a net impact of 28 percentage points. At 12 months postprogramme,
the net employment impact had fallen to 15 percentage points.
Stromback and Dockery (2000) used the panel data 1994-1997 Survey of Employment
and Unemployment Patterns (SEUP) to examine employment outcomes for programme
participants, including the Jobstart. The survey collected 3 interviews between September
1994 and 1997, for a panel of persons aged 15-59 years. Labour market history for each
month of the past year was collected at each interview by recall, recorded as periods of
13 New Work Opportunities (NWO). NWO provided direct job creation in projects where placements had
work with some training typically in environmental, age care and community sectors [OECD (2001): 199].
14 DEETYA (1997) “The net impact of labour market programs: improvements in the prospects of those
assisted” DEETYA Evaluation and Monitoring Branch report 2/97, Economic and Policy Division,
Canberra. Cited Table 1 p194 Webster (1998) and Richardson (1998) p3.
15 DEETYA (1997) Appendix B cited Webster (1998) p200 footnote 5.