Adequacy of unemployment benefits

Adequacy of unemployment benefits and active labor market programs (ALMP) is measured by the total transfer amount received by the population participating in unemployment benefits and active labor market programs as a share of their total welfare. Welfare is defined as the total income or total expenditure of beneficiary households. Unemployment benefits and active labor market programs include unemployment compensation, severance pay, and early retirement due to labor market reasons, labor market services (intermediation), training (vocational, life skills, and cash for training), job rotation and job sharing, employment incentives and wage subsidies, supported employment and rehabilitation, and employment measures for the disabled. Estimates include both direct and indirect beneficiaries.

Limitations and exceptions: When interpreting ASPIRE performance indicators based on household surveys, it is important to note that the extent to which information on specific transfers and programs is captured in the household surveys can vary a lot across countries. Moreover, household surveys do not capture the universe of social protection programs in the country, in best practice cases just the largest programs. As a consequence, ASPIRE indicators are not fully comparable across program categories and countries; however, they provide approximate measures of social protection systems performance. In addition, there may be cases where ASPIRE performance indicators differ from official WB country reports as ASPIRE indicators are based on a first level analysis of original survey data and unified methodology that does not necessarily reflect country-specific knowledge and in depth country analysis relying on administrative program level data and/or imputations.