Research Department "Joblessness and Social Inclusion", Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany.
Research Unit "Changing World of Work", Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), Dortmund, Germany.
Work. 2022;72(2):611-625. doi: 10.3233/WOR-205046.
Vocational rehabilitation (VR) aims to help people with disabilities to return to the labour market. Though, there is not much evidence on its effectiveness.
We explore the effect of vocational training programmes in VR and the VR status itself on employment outcomes.
Using two samples from administrative data by the German Federal Employment Agency, we applied propensity score matching. We followed rehabilitants commencing VR in 2009/2010 (N = 7,905) for four years (comparison I) and general training participants with and without VR status completing training in 2012/2013 (N = 21,020) for one year (comparison II). For harmonisation purposes, we only considered individuals aged between 25 and 40 and excluded those in employment at the beginning of VR or training.
Concerning the effect of training in VR (comparison I), we observe a lock-in effect during training (p < 0.001) due to an involvement in VR; after training, participants are more likely to obtain unsubsidised employment (0.05, p < 0.05) than non-participants, but there is no statistically significant income difference after four years. Regarding the effect of the VR status (comparison II), rehabilitants are more likely to take up (un-)subsidised employment (0.04, p < 0.01; 0.02, p < 0.001) after training, exhibit longer employment durations (19 days, p < 0.001) and achieve higher average incomes (2,414 euro/year, p < 0.001) compared to non-rehabilitants.
Training participation helps to improve employment participation of rehabilitants. However, a longer observation period is recommended. Furthermore, the VR status itself leads to more sustainable and better-paid employment. This is due to more comprehensive support and longer-term subsidised employment opportunities.
职业康复（VR）旨在帮助残疾人重返劳动力市场。然而，关于其有效性的证据并不多。
我们探讨职业培训计划在 VR 中的效果以及 VR 本身对就业结果的影响。
使用德国联邦就业局的两项行政数据样本，我们应用了倾向评分匹配。我们跟踪了 2009/2010 年开始 VR 的康复者（N=7905）四年的情况（比较 I），以及 2012/2013 年参加和未参加 VR 的普通培训参与者完成培训的情况（N=21020）一年的情况（比较 II）。为了协调目的，我们仅考虑年龄在 25 至 40 岁之间的个人，并排除在 VR 或培训开始时已经就业的人员。
关于 VR 培训的效果（比较 I），我们观察到由于参与 VR，培训期间存在锁定效应（p<0.001）；培训后，参与者获得非补贴就业的可能性（0.05，p<0.05）高于非参与者，但四年后收入没有统计学上的显著差异。关于 VR 状态的效果（比较 II），康复者在培训后更有可能获得（非）补贴就业（0.04，p<0.01；0.02，p<0.001），表现出更长的就业持续时间（19 天，p<0.001），并实现更高的平均收入（2414 欧元/年，p<0.001），与非康复者相比。
培训参与有助于提高康复者的就业参与率。然而，建议延长观察期。此外，VR 本身状态会导致更可持续和更高薪的就业。这是由于更全面的支持和长期补贴就业机会。
