ABSTRACT
Labour market policy (LMP) measures should focus on early prevention of long-term unemployment and on cure after unemployed people have lost their connection to the labor market. In judgment-based profiling, it may be complicated to weigh correctly the factors considered to influence the individual risk. In model-based profiling, not all relevant individual factors are available for evaluation. A number of countries have experimented with or implemented some kind of profiling instrument. A nationwide profiling for newly registered unemployed or benefit claimants was introduced in the United States and Australia in 1994 and in the Netherlands in 1999. Since 1995 Canada has been testing a tool to determine efficient support to job-seekers. After thorough examination, Great Britain refrained from introducing formal profiling. Germany started a controlled experiment on profiling in three employment offices early in 2000. In the United States, with low levels of long term unemployed and scarce funds for LMP, profiling is based on the risk of exhausting benefits.
