EU member states have seen high levels of unemployment in recent years especially amongst young people. At the same time the fiscal crisis of welfare states has made it difficult for them to invest in new jobs and new economic growth. The EU, at least since the enactment of the Amsterdam treaty, has had a focus on how to support member states’ development of an employment policy which aims for higher levels of participation, lower levels of unemployment and more gender equal approaches. Through exploring patterns in the recent development of financing and governance of social services and developments of social services and employment in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany and the UK, this volume provides readers with new knowledge and evidence of the options regarding social innovation in social services. Furthermore, it provides a comparative European perspective on how the interplay between a public and private mix of social service on the one hand might help in creating jobs, and, on the other, be a way of coping with the needs and expectations of higher level of services in the core areas of the welfare state.

Bent Greve is Professor of Welfare State Analysis at the Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Denmark. Tomáš Sirovátka is Professor of Social Policy and head of the Institute of Public Policy and Social Work at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He is also head of the Research Centre in the Research Institute of Labour and Social Affairs in Brno, Czech Republic.