CROATIAN SOCIAL ASSISTANCE RECIPIENTS AND THEIR EMPLOYABILITY

Abstract

Unemployment does not produce isolated effects on unemployed but also shapes the quality of life of their family, affects the functioning of the community, and in the case of an increased unemployment rate, its consequences are visible within different segments of the state. Such far-reaching consequences have been encouraging policy makers and researchers for decades to develop measures that enable unemployed faster return to the labor market. The aim of this paper is to determine whether unemployed social assistance recipients have characteristics related to adverse employment prospective. The research has been conducted on a convenient sample of 212 unemployed social assistance recipients who were registered at the Croatian Employment Service in August 2017.
The results revealed that there is no difference between social assistance recipients and the unemployed population regarding gender structure and previous work experience. However, in relation to the age, educational structure and duration of unemployment, social assistance recipients had significantly less favorable characteristics. Social assistance recipients are unemployed for significantly longer periods, they are on average middle-aged people and with poor education. Based on these data, it is concluded that social assistance recipients are very hard to employ. Accumulated adverse characteristics illustrate how barriers to employment of social assistance recipients are multidimensional and how it is exceedingly hard for them to escape the clutches of unemployment. This paper shows that social assistance recipients and the long-term unemployed require more extensive support to increase their employability as well as prevent the accumulation of factors that hinder their employment and impair mental health. To prevent the accumulation of adverse characteristics the support should be provided immediately after becoming eligible for social assistance. After such a long period spent outside the labor market, the skills possessed by social assistance recipients are probably no longer attractive to employers. The value of this research is that it studies a vulnerable group that is hard to reach – those unemployed who are deprived and socially excluded. This research includes those people who feel the consequences of long-term unemployment and illustrates what happens if there are no preventive measures and adequate employment policy measures. The knowledge gained through this research can provide valuable guidelines for organizing activation measures for the long-term unemployed and social assistance recipients.