The Expanded Public Works Program is a long-term direct employment program offering employment in public works to South Africans living in poverty. This program generates employment across the public and private sectors with the goal of providing meaningful opportunities for participants and results for their communities. The program grew during COVID to absorb all of the newly unemployed and provides work across all areas of the economy.

In response to the ballooning unemployment rate during the Great Financial Crisis and the expected long-term impact of prolonged unemployment on young people, the UK government implemented the Future Jobs Fund. The program targeted young people for work benefiting the community in the hope of transitioning them to private sector employment. Government analysis showed that the program resulted in a net benefit for participants, employers, and society (1).

This program, a response to record-high unemployment and long-term unemployment after the Global Financial Crisis, aimed to create projects valuable to workers and their communities. The program has been implemented by the Greek Ministry of Labor and with the assistance of the European Social Fund. Employment opportunities have been diverse. Entrance and exit surveys demonstrate the program has been effective, with a wide variety of positive impacts on individuals in the program (1).

All rural households are guaranteed a total of 100 days of paid labor, each adult in a rural household is eligible to apply for work (1). As the Ministry of Rural Development explains, “MGNREGA is bottom-up, people-centred, demand-driven, self-selecting and rights-based programme. It provides a legal guarantee for wage employment by providing allowances and compensation both in cases of failure to provide work on demand and delays in payment of wages for work undertaken…. Thus MGNREGA also marks a break from the relief programmes of the past towards an integrated natural resource management and livelihoods generation perspective,” (2).

This program sought to end long-term unemployment in Gramatneusiedl, Austria (an industrial area formerly known as Marienthal and 25 km south of Vienna) with close experimental study during the planning and implementation phases. The program created jobs across fields in both market and nonmarket sectors and studied the social and economic impact of providing a guaranteed job compared to a synthetic control composed of similar economies in Austria (1).

The National Youth Administration (NYA) was created by President Roosevelt in the summer of 1935 under the authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The program was directed by Aubrey Williams for a majority of its existence. Notably, Williams, and Elenore Roosevelt, reportedly sought to incorporate the values of racial equality into the program. The program offered work for out-of-school, unemployed youth and part-time work-study aid to help students in high school or attending college (1).

Argentina’s political and economic institutions crumbled in the early 2000s - leading to rapid changes in governance, a collapse in employment and income, difficulty servicing the national debt, and a weakening of its currency (1). The Argentinian government sought to revive and expand public employment programs of the 1990s by becoming the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) to meet this greater need in the form of the Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados. The program generated public sector, socially valuable work and hastened the economic recovery in the mid 2000s.

A short-term public employment program as part of the Economic Recovery Strategy offering employment opportunities managed in a portfolio system to deliver a wide spectrum of socially valuable employment opportunities and protect existing jobs. The employment programs include expanding speed internet access to rural communities, improving schools, road maintenance, and arts and sports in an effort to combat the economic impacts of COVID-19 and build a better, more inclusive economy for the future (1).

As the EDRI and IFPRI write, “For over 30 years, responses to food insecurity in Ethiopia were dominated by emergency food aid. While this food aid saved lives, it often failed to protect livelihoods and this became a growing concern. In response, during 2005 the Ethiopian Government revised its emergency food aid system and launched the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) - a more productive approach to providing a safety net to vulnerable populations,” (1). This program provided food or pay for productive work on public infrastructure. The program is now in its fifth phase 2021-2026 (PSNP5).

This program promoted the reintegration of the unemployed in the labor force through productive projects in collaboration with the private sector. The government adopted active labor market policies to intervene in response to protracted, elevated unemployment.

Based on evidence that combining cognitive behavioral interventions and access to economic mobility can help individuals stay safer, nonprofit Heartland Alliance works to increase safety by addressing trauma and increasing economic opportunity in Chicago communities. Heartland Alliance works through community-based organizations to directly engage men at the highest risk of experiencing violence, and connects them with mental health supports, paid transitional jobs and professional development, and support services (2).

Luxembourg will sponsor the creation of employment for the long-term unemployed in government, public institutions, non-profit organizations, and more to reintegrate them into the workforce (1)(2).