Short training for welfare recipients in Germany: which types work?

Purpose - Various types of short training programmes exist in Germany. This article aims to evaluate short training courses for welfare recipients and to detect which programme type works best with respect to different outcome indicators. Design/methodology/approach - The author measures the impact of six short training programmes on the participants. She uses propensity score matching and large-scale administrative data to find suitable comparison groups. She compares treatment to non-participation as well as participation in different training types directly. Findings - The results demonstrate that in-firm training has large positive effects on individual employment prospects and stability. Furthermore, classroom skill training is more effective than other classroom types while application training is rather ineffective. Treating some of the application training participants with an alternative sub-programme would improve the effectiveness. Research limitations/implications - The results show which training types work best. However, the results do not imply macro or cost-benefit effects. Practical implications - Several of the short training courses, mostly occupation-specific subprogrammes, are short and relatively inexpensive options to activate welfare recipients. Originality/value - The paper analyses the effects of six short training programmes for welfare recipients that have not been analysed before. The sensitivity of the results is examined using a wide range of estimators and different outcomes.