Work together on work or…? An examination of employers’ intention to cooperate with local governments by providing unemployed people with a job

Paper presented at Conference Connecting to Work: Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment and Prospect for Job Creation, UCLA: Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, April 1-2 2011.
In this paper, we will argue, based on a survey we conducted with employers, that the willingness of Dutch employers to cooperate with social services is highly dependent on company size. Therefore, in our opinion, social services should take company size into account when they are trying to find employers who are willing to cooperate with them. Whereas all employers underline the importance of financial considerations when it comes to their intention to cooperate with social services, employers at small companies (less than 11 employees) are especially sensitive to a more idealistic approach (“making a difference”) compared to employers at middle-sized (11-100 employees) and large companies (over 100 employees).