Evaluation and Action Research of Regional Experiments in Employment and Business Services

Prime Minister Sipilä’s government aimed at lifting Finnish economy on the track of sustainable growth and improving employment. As a significant part of the Government Programme, regional experiments were carried out during years 2017 and 2018 focusing on employment and economic development services. During the experiments, organisation of duties will be transferred to municipalities of joint co-operation regions i.e. counties. Regional experiments aimed at designing services that are customer-oriented, improve employment rate and decrease unemployment at the same time. A total of nine regions were been selected to take part in the experiments based on applications (41 applicants), three of which are being counties and six municipality-based regions. MDI took part in the research consortium lead by Demos Helsinki. MDI was responsible for evaluating the impact, operation models and applicability of experiments as well as providing regions with peer support and sparring.

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