The current performance indicator in NAV measures the proportion of NAV’s users who are employed six months after they have completed labor market measures or ceased to be registered as jobseekers or persons with reduced working capacity.
We recommend three measures to get a better and more relevant performance indicator than the one in use today.
1. Base the indicator on a new population: The indicator should measure outcomes in the labor market in the population that is in the NAV system, rather than those who have completed measures or changed status in NAV. This measure makes it possible to capture how quickly NAV can help people out of the NAV system and into work.
2. Capture the relative NAV contribution: Actual outcomes in the labor market should be compared with expected outcomes. Expected outcomes are estimated using regressions where key explanatory variables are characteristics of the users and the local labor market. This helps to adjust for conditions that NAV does not have the prerequisites to influence.
3. Use supplementary outcome measures: In addition to measuring whether NAV’s users are in work or not at a given time, continuous outcome measures, that capture how much the people have worked during a certain time period, should be used. This makes it possible to capture several aspects of the quality of job transitions.
The project has been completed on behalf of the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration. It includes a literature review of research papers that address the effects of NAV’s measures and work. It also includes a review of management parameters and performance indicators in other sectors in Norway and the labor market authorities in other countries. The report was written in close collaboration with the knowledge department in the Labor and Welfare Administration and with a reference group consisting of experts from the Ministry of Labor and Social Inclusion, local offices of NAV, the Labor and Welfare Administration, and Statistics Norway.
You can follow this link to read the report in Norwegian.
