EU Cohesion Policy is intended to sustain employment and create jobs. This paper tests whether the European Social Fund assistance contributed to employment and assesses the logic behind it. The paper is based on counterfactual impact evaluation of the OP Human Resources and Employment assistance for the training of employees in firms in the Czech Republic. The analysis is based on a data sample of 2,630 applicant companies. It shows that there are statistically significant estimates of the positive impact of the ESF on employment in supported small firms (5.65; p-value 0.04), and also a positive impact on employment in the case of medium-sized firms (11.19; p-value 0.00). The experience with conducting such an evaluation and the conclusions drawn are valuable for the design and implementation of Cohesion policy in the 2014 – 2020 programming period, not least given the new regulatory requirement for impact evaluation.
