Varieties of policy approaches to employer engagement in activation policies

In this chapter, a framework is introduced that identifies three main types of employer engagement in activation policies: regulating demand, facilitating demand and negotiating demand. These ‘varieties of employer engagement’ have fundamentally different problem definitions, target groups, governance modes and policy instruments and, by implication, different consequences for the relationship between employers, employment services and jobseekers. By comparing employer engagement in activation policies in three exemplars of activation in Northern Europe (the UK, Denmark and The Netherlands), the typology is deployed as a novel heuristic device for examining variations in the role and implications of involving employers in the implementation of activation policies. The contribution to academic and policy debates about activation is twofold. Firstly, the different approaches that lie behind attempts in activation policies to strengthen the role of employers are unpacked and systematized. Secondly, by using the typology to analyse recent developments in employer engagement in activation policies in three countries cases, the potential usefulness of the typology in developing a more nuanced and differentiated framework for understanding forms of employer engagement in activation is argued.