The U.S. job market has shown lackluster growth recently, to put it mildly.

The September employment report, released on Friday, revealed that nonfarm payrolls added just 103,000 jobs last month—not horrific, but still under the threshold economists say they need to cross in order to dent unemployment. The Senate is likely to vote on the job-creation proposals in President Obama’s $447 billion American Jobs Act this week, but the bill’s passage is a long shot.

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As they consider the legislation, lawmakers may want to reflect on their counterparts across the Atlantic.

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While each economy faces unique obstacles to growth, fellow developed countries like Germany, Denmark, and France have implemented programs analogous to some found in Obama’s jobs bill with success. These include job-search programs accompanying unemployment benefits and stepped-up apprenticeship programs.

Other countries have developed programs not found in the president’s legislation, such as mechanisms to certify workers who have gained skills on the job rather than in the classroom.

Unemployment insurance programs vary widely from country to country. As of 2007, the most recent year for which data was available, the U.S. paid employees 13.6 percent of their previous earnings on average, compared with 24.7 percent in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as a whole, which counts the U.S. and 33 other wealthy countries as members.

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The U.S. also has short-lasting unemployment benefits compared with most of the other OECD members. By itself, this provides a “powerful incentive” for the unemployed to look for their next job, according to Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

But other OECD countries have deployed different incentives to get recipients of unemployment benefits back to work. Many low-paying jobs in the U.S. pay around the same as the benefits. Other countries have ensured work earnings are higher than unemployment benefits, incentivizing recipients to look for a job, according to Stefano Scarpetta, the OECD’s Deputy Director for Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs.