SAS® Works for Slovenia

Slovenian Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Affairs meets EU employment policies with SAS® software

2004 SAS Enterprise Intelligence Award Winner

The quality and availability of jobs in a country affects not only the quality of work and life there, it also affects labor stability. A stable labor market enhances competitiveness. This basic socioeconomic tenet lies at the heart of the European Union (EU) and underpins the governmental philosophies of each member nation.

A balance between economic and employment policy is a necessary condition for EU development by 2010 (as defined in the Lisbon Agenda), and a balance between flexibility and job security is the main focus of the European employment strategy. Implementation of the newly adopted European employment policy and indicators is a demanding task for all EU member states. It is especially difficult for new members of the EU, which may be still adapting to dramatic changes that encompass almost every aspect of life as they make the transition to a market economy. Therefore, new EU member states like Slovenia – which gained EU status in May 2004 – must have metrics in place that allow them to monitor labor market trends and evaluate employment policy.

For Slovenia, the answer is the Labor Market Indicators System (LMIS) application, developed by the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Affairs. SAS provides the analytic solution behind LMIS, which Slovenia relies on to work toward the EU's employment strategy of "full employment and better jobs for all." Using SAS Strategic Performance Management, the Ministry monitors 200 labor market indicators that help to gauge what's happening on the labor market from different perspectives. These perspectives include policy measures for the unemployed, entrepreneurship, flexibility of work, workplace health and safety, human capital development, gender equality, payment for work, social inclusion and regional disparities across the country. Results are published in labor market progress reports to the EU and to the Slovenian government.

"If we had not chosen SAS, we would not be able to fulfill the EU requirements the same way we do now," says Dr. Tanja Česen, the Ministry of Labor's head of labor market analysis and development. "We chose SAS because of its completeness in functionality, flexibility and the knowledge about development of KPI information systems SAS demonstrated. The SAS team in Slovenia demonstrated a very good understanding of our objectives and helped us to make the project a reality relatively quickly."

Monitoring the labor market in Slovenia
The EU's purpose is to promote economic and social progress by helping member nations provide high-quality employment for their citizens. In its first decade, the EU says it wants to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. Managing Europe's labor market is therefore a key initiative, so the EU developed a standard set of labor market indicators that serves as a benchmark for all EU countries.

For Slovenia, the challenge was implementation of the EU employment guidelines, which widen the focus of the national employment policy not only to job growth but also to better quality of work. In addition to the European employment policy guidelines, Slovenia also must analyze the national labor market policy documents – labor market development strategy, SPD human capital development and social agreements – and then observe the effectiveness of active employment policy programs.

SAS delivers data, produces results
The LMIS is a complex information system that collects all data relevant for labor market analysis from different data sources and in different formats (micro data, aggregated data). The system then organizes the data warehouse, calculates various indicators and disseminates the results.

After implementing the SAS solution, the Ministry of Labor delivered results in just a few months. "I was very impressed with how fast SAS was able to gather the data and produce results," Česen says. "Today, SAS delivers more than 200 indicators about the labor market, which gives us very good insight into what is happening in the economy and labor market across Slovenia."

"A big challenge was getting the data right," Česen explains. "With several data providers outside the ministry, the data naturally arrived in different formats. SAS was very flexible in this respect, and that was a key success criterion for fast deployment. The main criteria for success are short implementation time and also flexibility in adoption of the ongoing changes in the European and Slovene labor market indicators."

Predicting, preparing for future needs
One way SAS has helped the ministry meet its goal of improving the quality of employment in Slovenia is by providing a close-up look at the labor market so the government can improve the effectiveness of the employment policy. Having all labor market data and indicators organized will raise awareness on all relevant aspects of work.

And now, the ministry has developed indicators that reflect what's happening not only in the job market but also in the whole economy and in the business sector. For example, it reports on economic and productivity growth, start-up companies and their survival rates. Using the time-series tool in SAS Strategic Performance Management, the ministry will provide more in-depth analysis and also develop the forecasting techniques.

"Working with SAS, we have finally achieved real progress in the development of our LMIS application," Česen says. "SAS increases the quality of our analysis and reports so that now, instead of spending too much time on collection of the data, we can concentrate on the quality analysis and finding ways to make our employment policies more effective."

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