When evaluating a highly decentralized and regionalized labour market program, local structures and strategies had to be considered, yet it was not possible to evaluate every single implementation in detail. Additionally, for some program indicators, only a stratified random sample of participants was available, which was too small to allow a reliable analysis on the level of individual job centers. In order to be able to analyze the relationship between organizational strategies and structures of the jobcenters in question on the one hand and the success in the activation and integration of participants on the other hand, the jobcenters have been classified into several dimensions using cluster analysis. Participants were then pooled according to the different clusters. Thus, heterogenity in the implementation of the program could be considered, and there were sufficiently large numbers of cases available for analysis.

Keywords
Macro Level Evaluation, Cluster Analysis, Classification, Labour Market Programme