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Job search Assistance for Vocational Students

This paper evaluates AvenirPro, a job search assistance and counseling program specifically designed for vocational students in France.

In France, vocational students face a significantly higher unemployment rate compared to apprentices who obtain the same diploma.

This paper evaluates AvenirPro, a job search assistance and counseling program specifically designed for vocational students. The program consists of two components. First, caseworkers from the French Public Employment Service deliver in-class interventions during the final year of vocational schooling. These sessions aim to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct effective job searches and prepare for interviews. Second, the same caseworkers provide individualized support during the five months following graduation. We designed and implemented a large-scale field experiment with randomization at three levels. First, we randomly selected schools. Second, within treated schools, classes were randomly selected to participate in the group-level counseling sessions. Third, among students in treated classes, some were randomly assigned to receive post-graduation support.

Our preliminary results indicate a substantial increase in employment rates six months after graduation among treated students. These effects seem to be driven by the first part of the program.

The Ins and Outs of Vacancies

The study documents the cyclicality of vacancy flows and their contribution to variation in the vacancy stock with data from Austria.

This paper uses large-scale high-frequency data on vacancy flows and matched employer-employee data from Austria to document the cyclicality of vacancy flows and their contribution to variation in the vacancy stock.

We document four key facts: (1) Vacancy inflows explain at least one-third of the cyclical variation in the vacancy stock, whereas the remainder is explained by vacancy fillings; (2) vacancy lapses, while accounting for about 20% of vacancy outflows, are acyclical and do not contribute to variation in the stock; (3) replacement vacancies, i.e. vacancies posted following a quit of a worker to another firm, are a key driver of vacancy inflows over the business cycle; and (4) the composition of vacancy inflows varies little over the business cycle and cannot account for the cyclical variation in vacancy filling. We set up a search-and-matching model with fixed costs of vacancy posting and on-the-job search, and calibrate it to match the averages of vacancy flows.

The calibrated model highlights the crucial role of on-the-job search – particularly replacement hires – in explaining the observed importance of vacancy inflows for cyclical fluctuations in the vacancy rate.

Trust as a Retention Tool in Voluntary Business Survey Panels: Learnings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond operates a voluntary monthly business survey panel covering the eastern mid-Atlantic United States.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond operates a voluntary monthly business survey panel covering the eastern mid-Atlantic United States. Despite employing best practices from social exchange and other response theories, the Richmond Fed has experienced low recruitment rates and minimal impact on panel retention. Most theories on survey participation are derived from individuals and not on businesses. There are significant differences in administering surveys to businesses versus households, which could mean that existing response theories may not be optimal for business surveys.

To better understand the motivations behind business participation in surveys, the Richmond Fed conducted original research among its survey panelists. The Richmond Fed added both an open-ended and closed-ended question into its monthly survey to gauge panelists’ reasons for participation.

Findings from the research found that the key principles of social exchange held true, particularly the importance of building trust between respondents and the research organization. Businesses view trust in several ways: they feel included in the policy decision-making process, that participation allows them to stay informed and to reflect on their business through tangible and intangible benefits, participation is an act of civic duty, and participation allows them to have their voice heard.

This presentation will detail how the Richmond Fed developed a survey retention program based on their research findings. The program incorporates a communication strategy tailored to the duration of panel membership. It also utilizes non-monetary incentives such as newsletters and webinars to maintain panelist interest and involvement. Additionally, the program offers personalized experiences for panelists through adult-to-adult communication, personalized data reports, and notifications when their information is used in policy discussions or external publications. The presentation will provide guidance on how to create retention programs that are customized to meet the specific needs of your organization.

Refugee Labor Market Integration at Scale: Evidence from Germany’s Fast-Track Employment Program

This study examines the Job-Turbo, a nationwide initiative launched by the German government in 2023 to accelerate refugee employment.

Governments continue to face challenges integrating refugees into local labor markets, and many past interventions have shown limited impact.

This study examines the Job-Turbo, a nationwide initiative launched by the German government in 2023 to accelerate refugee employment - primarily among individuals from Ukraine and eight other major countries of origin. Using monthly administrative panel data from Germany’s network of public employment service offices and a difference-in-differences design, we find sizable increases in both caseworker - refugee contact and job placements over a 23-month follow-up. Among Ukrainian refugees, the exit-to-job rate nearly doubled. Effects were broad-based - spanning demographic subgroups, unemployment durations, skill levels, regions, and local labor-market conditions - and concentrated in regular, unsubsidized employment. The program also raised both the rate and the share of sustained placements, consistent with improved match quality. Other refugee groups saw meaningful gains as well, though increases in job placements were concentrated among men and in low-skill jobs, with comparatively modest effects for women. We detect no negative spillovers for German or other immigrant job seekers, finding no evidence of either resource reallocation or displacement.

These results suggest that intensified job-search assistance - embedded early in the integration process and implemented at scale through public employment infrastructure - can meaningfully improve refugees’ labor-market outcomes even amid substantial arrivals.

The Effects of Reducing Mandatory Job Search in Unemployment Insurance

This paper studies the effects of a market-level reduction in job search provided by unemployment benefit recipients.

This paper studies the effects of a market-level reduction in job search provided by unemployment benefit recipients. We exploit a market-level policy change in Switzerland, where a subset of Public Employment Services reduced the number of required applications by 25% and abolished mandatory vacancy referrals.

Using detailed administrative data and difference-in-differences designs, we find that the policy change increased the average duration of unemployment spells by about 6%, while increasing average reemployment earnings by about 2%. At the firm side, vacancy filling and posting reduced substantially.

Local conditions and integration when randomly placed refugees can move away

This paper demonstrates that random dispersal policies (RDP) are not sufficient for causal identification for two reasons.

A large body of migration literature uses random dispersal policies (RDP) to estimate the importance of local factors for integration.

This paper demonstrates that RDP is not sufficient for causal identification for two reasons. First, while RDP ensures that local conditions are exogenous to immigrant characteristics, they still correlate with other observed and unobserved local factors. Second, onward mobility requires careful consideration, as it can be endogenous to factors at the initial location. We theoretically show that estimates from continuousinstruments based on RDP contain three components: the causal effect of interest, ”multiple-treatment bias” (MTB), and ”mobility bias” (MB). The extent of these biases depends on the interrelations of local factors and onward mobility, which can be partly observed. We empirically investigate these biases using novel administrative data from Germany that cover the universe of all refugees between 2013 and 2018 and feature random dispersal.

The central empirical finding is that estimates that ignore MB and MTB cannot be compared and can even change signs.

Joint: Marco Schmandt, Constantin Tielkes, Felix Weinhardt

Family Policy, Careers and Workplace Technology

This workshop aims to advance research on labor market outcomes, family policy, and career development, drawing on rich register data from Germany and Norway.

This workshop aims to advance research on labor market outcomes, family policy, and career development, drawing on rich register data from Germany and Norway. Key themes include how workplace structures, public policy, and firm behavior influence career trajectories, economic mobility, and workforce well-being. Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Careers, promotions, wages and compensation, human capital
Family, social, and tax policies (e.g., childcare, parental leave, affirmative action, mentor programs)
Innovations and technology in the workplace
Firm organization, management practices, and corporate outcomes
Flexible work arrangements and work environment
Gender inequality and intersectional perspectives within labor markets

In cooperation with Norwegian School of Economics and Statistics Norway.

Skill-Replacing Technology and Bottom-Half Inequality

In this model, technology substitutes the usage of skill in routine tasks in contrast to standard RBTC models.

I propose a model of a skill-replacing routine-biased technological change (SR-RBTC). In this model, technology substitutes the usage of skill in routine tasks in contrast to standard RBTC models, which assume technology replaces the workers themselves.

The SR-RBTC model explains three key trends that are inconsistent with standard RBTC models: 1) why specifically middle wages declined even though workers in routine occupations are dispersed across the entire bottom half of the wage distribution, 2) why middle wages stopped declining while the technological change continued, and 3) why there is no substantial decline in the average wage of workers inroutine occupations. I derive two new testable predictions from the model: a decreasein return to skill and a decrease in skill level in routine occupations. I use an interactive fixed-effects model to confirm both predictions.

Since SR-RBTC violates the ignorability assumption required by standard decomposition methods, I introduce a “skewness decomposition” to show that SR-RBTC is the main driver of bottom-half inequality trends.