Frontiers of active labor market policy

The Europeans like to talk about "activation" of the unemployed, by which they mean moving them from passive receipt of benefit to active participation in job search or training.

The Danes, apparently, have decided that in some cases deactivation is useful too. Key bit:

“A job counsellor at a state-operated jobcentre […] attempted to get a teenage jobseeker to take four sedatives prior to an interview. […] the jobcentre’s manager confirmed the incident and added that he was taking full responsibility for the mistake. ‘This case will definitely result in serious internal discussions about ethics and case handling that oversteps the line.’ “

Chill out, dude.

Hat tip: Lars Skipper (but you probably already guessed that)

So many New Deals, so little time.

I sometimes joke when presenting my paper on the British New Deal for Young People program that the Blair government set up programs for pretty much every group of identifiable voters. This turns out to be more true than I thought: there is a description of the "New Deal for Musicians" here.