'Work for the dole' - A cheap labour market program? An economist's perspective

From an economists perspective, this paper explores some of the issues asso ciated with the design of an effective labour market program, and evaluatio n processes which are required to determine the merits of a scheme. This an alysis comes at the time when pilot projects under the federal Government's 'Work for the Dole' scheme are being implemented. The paper concludes that if the 'Work for the Dole' scheme is to be viewed as a labour market progr am, then an evaluation mechanism should have been determined prior to the i mplementation of such a scheme.