In recent years, a key social economy policy target in Flanders is the transition of target group workers from jobs in Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE’s) (cf. Davister et al., 2004; Nyssens & Defourny, 2012) towards jobs elsewhere in the economy. Both target group workers and WISEs are supported and stimulated to realize this transition. The regulation with respect to some types of WISEs, such as Work Experience Enterprises (WEE) and Work Integration Enterprises (WIE), stipulates that transition towards a job elsewhere in the labor market in Flanders is an explicit goal, ]while for other types of WISE’s, like the social workplaces, this is not. Furthermore, in the new policy regarding the social economy there’s a lot of attention for the transitions that are being made from the SIE towards the NEC. In addition, target group workers and work forms respectively are supported and stimulated to transfer to a job in the NEC.
This paper, based upon a study (cf. Jacobs et al., 2012) conducted within the framework of the Policy Research Centre Work and Social Economy (Steunpunt WSE), seeks to give more insight into transitions of target group workers from the WISE’s towards other labor market positions in Flanders. Moreover, we investigate the sustainability of these transitions and the features of the jobs these target group workers move to.
To do so, we used data from the Federal Crossroad Bank for Social Security (KSZ) which provides information about employees, employers, jobseekers etc., and data from the Flemish Subsidy Agency for Work and Social Economy (FSAWSE), which provides information about the target group workers in the WISE’s in Flanders.
We start with a brief introduction of the policy framework on WISE’s in Flanders and describe the main features of the three studied types of WISE’s. In the second section, we describe the research design and the used methodology, as well as the data being used and general data limitations which apply. The research results are the main focus of the third section. We will respectively discuss the profile and labor market history (cf. unemployment duration) of the transferred target group workers, the transitions towards work (sustainability and features of the new job), the transitions towards unemployment and inactivity and the transitions back into the Social Insertion Economy. In the last section we present the main conclusions and pathways for future research.