Audit of the Department of Labor"s technical assistance activities in Bulgaria

Department of Labor (DOL) program to help Bulgaria restructure its employment services to deal with the growing unemployment that is accompanying the country"s transition from a command to a market economy. Audit covers the period 4/91-12/92. According to interviews with Bulgarian officials, the assistance provided by the DOL has had and will have a significant impact on improving the operations of Bulgaria"s local employment offices and helping to address the growing unemployment problem. For example, virtually all the officials interviewed noted that once the DOL model was implemented at local employment offices, the long lines previously experienced at the offices were eliminated. The DOL model provided a more efficient processing structure to deal with large numbers of unemployed workers -- the model introduced specialization and encouraged the offices to schedule appointments for the unemployed. The Directors of the four regional employment offices that were visited during the audit credited the DOL model with focusing their efforts on helping the unemployed find work, rather than just paying unemployment benefits. According to these officials, the model introduced the concept of specialization and "job brokering" (i.e., trying to match the skills of the unemployed with available job openings). Employment offices that adopted the model now have specialists who work with the unemployed to identify the unemployed worker"s skills and attempt to match these skills with job vacancies requiring particular skills. These specialists also continually contact employers to identify job vacancies. According to another donor official, when the DOL team first started providing TA in 1991, the National Employment Service Office did not have a regional structure but instead had all 122 local employment offices reporting to the National Director. At the suggestion of the Labor team, the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare implemented a regional office structure to better organize and manage the local employment office system. The Director of the Plovdiv Regional Office reported that, with the assistance of the Labor team, her office had developed a proposal for assisting ethnic minorities in her region. The proposal is mainly targeted at Gypsies, a group with an 80% unemployment rate. According to the Director, the proposal is currently under review by the National Employment Service Office and is being considered for funding. While Bulgarian Government officials were very satisfied with the TA provided by the DOL, the absence of specific objectives, along with progress indicators such as targets and time frames, made it difficult to determine what the assistance was accomplishing. A.I.D."s interagency agreements did not require the DOL to establish specific goals for its TA activities. Such management information is necessary for assessing the effectiveness of the assistance. (Author abstract, modified)