Closing the gap?

Immigrants are more likely to be unemployed, have temporary jobs and low income, which makes labour market integration an important political challenge. Access to paid work is central for the economic situation and social position in society, but knowledge of factors and policies that improve labour market integration for newly arrived immigrants still remains limited. Prior research point out that integration is a process involving both micro and macro dimension, where individuals gradually approach employment. However, no measure of distance to the labour market exist which can give insight on individuals far away from the labour market. With data from the Public Employment Service, this thesis will develop an index as a way to scale the distance between unemployed and employed. It will look into the dynamics of labour market integration by investigating the hub of active policies aiming at directly affecting the economic situation of immigrant; the introduction programme. A year after finishing the introduction program, there are significant differences in the distance to the labour market and probability of employment between the index groups. The results indicate three main findings; the number of activities, the time until you start an activity and what activities are included in the introduction plan matter for labour market integration. Comparing groups within the index reveals that women, lower educated and individuals arriving as quota refugees are further away from the labour market. In conclusion the index is a useful tool to assess labour market distance and provides a measure with predictive power, even after controlling for individual characteristics.