Combatting Unemployment

In this chapter addresses the various phases and changes which the involvement of the local authorities in combatting unemployment has undergone. It highlights the reform of 2004 which ushered in a profound financial and organizational reform of social and unemployment assistance. In its wake, a quarter of the pertinent local authorities “opted” (as so-called “opted local authorities”, Optionskommunen) to attend the long-term unemployed in a stand-alone comprehensive responsibility which has no parallel in other countries.