The Net Impact of Training Measures from Active Labour Market Programs in Romania – Subjective and Objective Evaluation

In this paper we focus on both subjective and objective evaluation of the net impact of training measures in Romania based on beneficiaries’ opinion on the usefulness of the measure and on a propensity score matching approach. For that, micro-data for both the treatment group and the control group were collected through a survey elaborated on 641 respondents by the National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection in October 2014. The propensity score matching technique was applied in order to evaluate the effects of the training programs on employment in Romania on two time dimensions, namely both at the end of the training labour market policy in 2013 and also at the end of the survey analysis in October 2014. In both cases the results indicate a slightly negative net impact on employment, suggesting that an unemployed attending a training program has less chances to find a job than someone similar in characteristics, but who did not apply for a training program. The subjective evaluation was done by measuring the opinion of the training services beneficiaries related to the measure's usefulness in finding a job. These results are to some extent surprising, but could imply that the labour market policy implemented in Romania should more rigorously identify and target the unemployed segment it addresses in order to improve its efficiency.