Summary - From sheltered employment to Participation Act

How have people on the waiting list for sheltered employment fared?

Original title: "Van sociale werkvoorziening naar Participatiewet"

The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) is conducting a long-term evaluation of the effectiveness of the Participation Act. The central question in that evaluation is how the various target groups are faring since the introduction of the Act. What does the Act mean for the employment chances and benefit dependency of the different target groups? If people find work, where do they do so? And how permanent is that work?

This report concentrates on the target group of the Sheltered Employment Act (Wsw). The Wsw enables people with a work-limiting disability to perform work under adapted conditions in sheltered employment placements. Access to this form of employment was blocked to new entrants from 1 January 2015. This also applies for people with a referral for Wsw sheltered employment who were on the waiting list for such a placement at the end of 2014. They are however eligible for support from local authorities, for example by means of wage cost subsidies. This publication describes how these people have fared.