High employment rate has become a central goal for welfare states, as it is a prerequisite for ensuring the financing of comprehensive social security and welfare services, especially as the population ages. Many factors influence the employment rate more than employment services, but the importance of these services is particularly emphasized in the current situation, where persistent long-term unemployment and growing labor shortages occur simultaneously.
Since the 1990s, Denmark has developed the so-called flexicurity model, which has internationally, including in the EU, been highlighted as an example of successful employment policy. Several Finnish governments in the 2000s have referred to the ‘Danish model’ as a benchmark for their employment policies. Significant steps toward this model have been taken with the ‘Nordic labor market service model’ in 2022 and especially with the PES reform implemented at the beginning of 2025. At the heart of this reform is the transfer of responsibility for provision of employment services to municipalities. A similar reform was carried out in Denmark in 2009. At the same time, an incentive-based funding model was implemented, in which municipalities contribute to covering unemployment benefit costs in the same way as in Denmark since 2015, creating strong incentive to municipalities to develop measures that increase employment rate. Denmark and now Finland are the only countries where responsibility for labor market services is fully municipalized. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has recently prepared an extensive study on the conditions for implementing a flexible security model more comprehensively in Finland.
The Danish employment services has witnessed significant changes since the municipalization in 2009, but none more substantial and far-reaching than the “Employment Reform” of 2025, which is currently being implemented. At the core of this reform is a combination of a significant increase in authority and discretion of municipalities in targeting and implementing services, with significant downizing of services to achieve substantial cost savings. The ‘Danish model’, however, remains a central reference point for reforms being implemented in Finland (Senior government advisors: Flexicurity could over time boost employment – Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment). This motivates exploring openings for deeper comparison and mutual learning between the countries.
Work Research Centre at Tampere University, together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and other actors in employment policy research and evaluation, will organize two open researcher workshops in May 2026.
Distinguished researchers of Danish employment policy, Associate Professor Niklas Andreas Andersen — Aalborg University’s Research Portal (aau.dk) and Professor Flemming Larsen – Aalborg Universitets forskningsportal, along with several Finnish experts in the field, will analyze and compare the development of employment policy in both countries.
Alongside the development, challenges, and future prospects of the Finnish and Danish models, the workshops will focus specifically on issues related to the impact evaluations of the services, as well as examining experiences and lessons learned from projects aimed at improving multidisciplinary services for those who are weakly attached to the labour market.
In Denmark, a highly institutionalized evaluation system has been established, which has been shown to significantly influence the provision and development of services. In Finland, the importance of impact assessments has also been emphasized in recent government policies, but the quality of these assessments has been criticized, for example by the OECD (2025). Responsibility and resources have been allocated to the KEHA Centre to develop evidence-based management of services, in a way comparable to the role of Danish Agency for Labour Market and Recruitment (STAR).
In both Finland and Denmark (as in many other countries), individually tailored, multidisciplinary services for people weakly attached to the labor market—who make up a large part of the clientele of employment services in both countries—have been developed over the past twenty years. Despite efforts and repeated development projects, the employability of the target groups for these services has remained low. In Finland, in this context, a decision has been made to reform the services that have so far been widely offered as ‘rehabilitative work activities’. In the workshop particularly the experiences from the ambitious CUBB project (Center for Udvikling af Borgerinddragende Beskæftigelsesindsatser (CUBB) – Aalborg University), which is based on long-term cooperation between Aalborg University and several municipalities, will be analyzed and compared with knowledge gained from evaluations of Finnish services.
Program (changes possible)
Workshop 1: Future prospects for employment policies and -services in Denmark and Finland and the role of evaluations in developing such policies and services.
Helsinki 26.5.2026 at 10-16
Venue: Tieteiden talo, Cedercreutz -sali, Kirkkokatu 6
Part 1: The Danish model – a model for Finland?
Heikki Räisänen & Johanna Alatalo (Ministry of employment and economic affairs): How could Finland approach flexicurity type of labour market model? Comparative evidence from Denmark and other peer countries. (A presentation based on https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-327-869-1)
Flemming Larsen (Aalborg university): The “Danish model” – Current transitions and future prospects.
- Active labour market policy has long been a cornerstone of the Danish flexicurity model. Since the early 2000s, it has centered on a mix of deterrence effects (availability requirements, active job search, activation, and sanctions) and upskilling to improve employability, with a strong emphasis on rapid labour market entry.
- Over the past 15 years, this approach has also become central to social policy, extending to people with challenges beyond unemployment. The intensified focus on duties and incentives has produced a largely municipal but centrally governed system shaped by extensive legal and procedural requirements—resulting in a highly bureaucratic and widely criticized structure.
- In recent years, the system has been softened, with greater emphasis on citizen involvement. This shift has culminated in a new reform (2026) granting municipalities far more freedom to design participatory interventions, though accompanied by significant budget cuts. This forms the backdrop for discussing the latest Danish developments.
Part 2: Policy evaluation and policy making in Denmark and Finland
Niklas Andersen (Aalborg university): The evaluation system of employment services in Denmark – development and role in policymaking.
- In the last two decades, impact evaluation of ALMP measures has been inscribed within central administrative procedures and institutions for policymaking – thus forming a coherent evaluation system. This evaluation system has significantly affected how labor market policies are evaluated and has also contributed to the dominant “job-first” perspective and focus on the activation measures of client-caseworker meetings and job-training.
Santtu Sundvall (KEHA): Monitoring, evaluation and knowledge based management of PES in Finland after the municipalization reform.
Simo Aho (Tampere University): Why and when evidence has (not) impact on policy making?
Hannu Karhunen (Labore): Comment
Part 3: Discussion
Panel discussion (speakers, ev. others?)
Comments and questions from audience
Workshop 2: Integrated, multisectoral and client-centered services for groups with low employability
Tampere 27.5.2026 at 12-16
Venue: to be announced
Flemming Larsen (Aalborg university): Local innovation of employment services.
- Presentation of the experiences of the CUBB-project (https://www.cubb.aau.dk / LISES – Local Innovation in Social and Employment services – Aalborg University) with a specific focus on the substantial organizational changes enacted by the collaborating municipal jobcentres. The project that was started in 2016 is based on cooperation between six municipalities and Aalborg University, and it has ambitious innovative elements, especially regarding knowledge co-creation and client empowerment.
Niklas Andersen (Aalborg university) The challenges and potentials of organizing and managing holistic and client-centered employment services.
- The Danish employment services are currently undergoing transitions towards more individualized and client-centered services for the most vulnerable unemployed. The presentation will focus on two of the main avenues through which these transitions takes place: 1) Furthering cross-sectoral service integration (especially between employment and social services); and 2) Changing the performance measurement systems to better monitor and incentives the municipalities to adhere to the needs and wishes of clients. The presentation will highlight the potentials and pitfalls that both of these current transitions pose for the management, organization and governance of employment services.
Peppi Saikku & Sanna Blomgren (THL): Local governance of welfare benefits and employment-related services: The formation of the new multisectoral cooperation model for employment (TYM)
Contributions from other Finnish researchers to be announced soon.
Concluding discussion
Information on registration for participation will be announced later.
Contact address: simo.aho@tuni.fi
Selected publications of Andersen and Larsen
Andersen, N. A., & Larsen, F. (2024). Activation policy: bruised and battered but still standing. Policy and Society, 43(2), 127-140. https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae013
Caswell, D., Nielsen, M. H., & Larsen, F. (In press). The puzzling reconciliation of conditionality and personalised services in employment services: How managers, frontline workers and claimants strive to solve a Gordian Knot. I V. Tan Chen, S. Pultz, & O. Sharone (red.), Handbook on Unemployment and Society Edward Elgar Publishing.
Caswell, D., & Larsen, F. (red.) (2021). Borgerinddragelse i beskæftigelsespolitikken. DJØF Forlag. Arbejdsmarkedsforhold
Andersen, N. A. (2020). “The constitutive effects of evaluation systems: Lessons from the policymaking process of Danish Active Labour Market Policies”. Evaluation. 26 (3), 257-274.
Andersen, N. A. & Breidahl, K. N. (2021). ”The power of ideas in policymaking processes: The role of institutionalised knowledge production in state bureaucracies”. Social Policy and Administration. 55 (5), 848-862.
Andersen, N. & Pattyn, V. (2025). “The organization of evaluations: The influence of the ministry of finance on evaluation systems”. Evidence and Policy. 21 (2), 206-228.
Larsen, F., & Caswell, D. (2022). Co-creation in an era of welfare conditionality: Lessons from Denmark. Journal of Social Policy, 51(1), 58-76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279420000665
Caswell, D., Nielsen, M. H., & Larsen, F. (In press). The puzzling reconciliation of conditionality and personalised services in employment services: How managers, frontline workers and claimants strive to solve a Gordian Knot. I V. Tan Chen, S. Pultz, & O. Sharone (red.), Handbook on Unemployment and Society Edward Elgar Publishing.
Andersen, N., Caswell, D., & Larsen, F. (2017). A New Approach to Helping the Hard to Place Unemployed: The Promise of Developing New Knowledge in an Interactive and Collaborative Process . European Journal of Social Security, 19(4), 335-352. https://doi.org/10.1177/1388262717745193
Andersen, N. A. & Breidahl, K. N. (2025). ”Caught in a standstill: The unresolved challenges of integrated service delivery in public organizations”. Public Administration. 103 (1,), 25-46.
Andersen, N. A., Larsen, F. & Caswell, D. (2024). “Measuring Active Labour Market Polices”. In Triantafillou, P. & Lewis, J. (eds.). Handbook on Measuring Governance. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 229-242.