The Apprenticeship Contract: An Evaluation

Abstract

The apprenticeship contract is an instrument to fight against youth unemployment which has under-gone several reforms since the crisis in 2008. Despite its changes, the empirical evidence on its effects on the employability of young people is very limited. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to evaluate this type of contract. For this purpose, data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives are examined and Propensity Score Matching is used as method of analysis. Results show that this type of contract does not contribute to the improvement of youth employability when compared to temporary contracts.