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Getting unemployed workers to search with sufficient intensity has been for a long time an important aspect of active and passive labor market policies. For example, unemployment insurance benefits decrease over an unemployment spell or expire exactly for this reason. But for it to make sense, it would need to be established that search intensity actually matters for the probability of finding a job. It seems obvious, but there are so many different ways to do this that some may turn out not to be that good and should thus not be required for eligibility to some programs.
Javier Vázquez-Grenno tries this for Spain, a country with an unusually high unemployment rate. He finds that immigrants have a higher search success, at least before the current crisis. Search intensity as measured by the number of search methods matters, and all methods improve the chances of employment, except one. Registering at the public employment office. That must be a big disappointment for all those who have maintained that these offices were the center part of lowering the unemployment rate. It does not seem to work at the microeconomic level, although it may still work at the macroeconomic one: after all, the office employees would probably be unemployed without that job.
Javier Vázquez-Grenno tries this for Spain, a country with an unusually high unemployment rate. He finds that immigrants have a higher search success, at least before the current crisis. Search intensity as measured by the number of search methods matters, and all methods improve the chances of employment, except one. Registering at the public employment office. That must be a big disappointment for all those who have maintained that these offices were the center part of lowering the unemployment rate. It does not seem to work at the microeconomic level, although it may still work at the macroeconomic one: after all, the office employees would probably be unemployed without that job.
1 comment:
when younger I spent a decade or so working in a public employment office. These results square with my experience, but the interesting thing is that this office was quite technically efficient.
But a referral by the office to an employer was a clear signal of inferiority of the prospective employee - "if you have to go to the government to get a job you can't be very good".
The same effect is well known in wage subsidy voucher schemes for the long term unemployed - the voucher is in effect a certificate of unemployability.
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