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Archive: IAB-Veranstaltungen

I will talk a bit on how we use machine learning in general in the area of labour market policy in DK, and how we relate this to our core business of producing results on employment and education.
As a specific example of our work, I will illustrate our statistical profiling of newly unemployed, both the technical/methodological side as well as the practical implementation and general experiences in this area, and some thoughts on further development.
Finally I will talk a bit on other more recent areas of developing datadriven solutions in the field of labour market policy, drawing perspectives to new possibilities deriving from machine-learning and modern Technology

Unemployment insurance systems in modern labor markets are riddled with a multitude of rules and regulations governing job seekers' economic situation and their incentives to search for employment. These include, for instance, detailed regulations specifying individuals' benefit level and potential benefit duration, job search requirements, conditions for avoiding benefit sanctions, possibilities for earning extra income or additional benefit entitlements by working in part-time or short-term jobs, etc. The complexity of UI systems makes it challenging for job seekers to understand the prevailing rules, their built-in incentives, and the resulting consequences for their personal economic situation. This is potentially problematic, as a lack of understanding may distort individuals' job search incentives and employment prospects.

In this paper, we report the results from a randomized controlled trial among the universe of registered Danish job seekers that studies how reducing complexity affects individuals' understanding of UI benefit rules and labor market behavior. Our intervention exploits an online information tool that provides individuals with continuously updated, personalized information on their remaining UI benefit period, their accumulated working time that can be used to prolong the potential benefit duration, as well as information on essential rules regarding job seekers' benefit duration and benefit sanctions. We match the data from our experiment with data from an online survey and rich information from administrative records to evaluate the causal effects of our intervention on individuals' understanding of the prevailing labor market rules, their job search behavior, and resulting labor market outcomes.

This talk will summarize two studies, which respectively study the role of caseworkers and public employment services for the labor market outcomes of unemployment benefit recipients. A first study asks whether and how much caseworkers matter for the outcomes of unemployed individuals. It exploits exogenous variation in unplanned absences among Swiss unemployment insurance caseworkers. A second study evaluates a large-scale policy change in which the public employment service of one Swiss canton changed its strategy by removing restrictions on job search and granting increased autonomy to job seekers.

Immer mehr Menschen sehen die soziale Marktwirtschaft durch Profitgier diskreditiert und verbinden unser Wirt­schaftssystem mit wachsender sozialer Spaltung, Klima­kollaps, Raubbau an der Natur und Ausbeutung der Drit­ten Welt. Der „Ehrbare Kaufmann“, so scheint es vielen, hat ausgedient. Grund genug, über eine neue Wirt­schaftsethik nachzudenken, die wieder den Menschen und seine Lebensgrundlagen in den Mittelpunkt stellt. Doch wie kann diese aussehen? Und wie kann sie verbindlich um­gesetzt werden? Darüber diskutierte eine hochkarätig besetzte Podiumsrunde bei den Nürnberger Gesprächen.

Digitalisierung, ökologische Transformation, demografischer Wandel – die Arbeitswelt befand sich schon vor Corona im Umbruch. Welche Folgen diese Entwicklungen haben, ist nicht zuletzt angesichts des Corona-Schocks noch völlig unklar – zumal sie teilweise in sehr unterschiedliche Richtungen wirken.

Daraus ergeben sich zahlreiche Fragen: Was wird zuerst knapp – die Arbeit, weil sie von Robotern erledigt wird, oder die Arbeitskräfte, weil immer mehr junge Menschen fehlen? Droht uns Massenarbeitslosigkeit oder dürfen sich die Beschäftigten auf einen Arbeitsmarkt freuen, auf dem sie die Forderungen stellen, nicht die Arbeitgeber? Werden gut bezahlte Industriejobs durch schlecht bezahlte Dienstleistungsjobs verdrängt? Oder schaffen neue Technologien, etwa im Umweltbereich, neue gut bezahlte Jobs? Schreitet die Globalisierung fort oder wird sie zurückgedreht – aufgrund von Handelskriegen, steigender Energiepreise oder als Reaktion auf die Covid-19-Pandemie? Und was würde dies für die Arbeitsplätze bedeuten, die vom Export abhängen? Wie können wir unseren Wohlstand halten und gute Arbeitsplätze für möglichst viele Menschen sichern?  

The Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) are pleased to announce the 1st LISER-IAB Conference on Digital Transformation and the Future of Work. The objective of the conference is to bring together researchers in social sciences to discuss their more recent research related to digital transformation and the future of work. Researchers interested in presenting at the LISER-IAB conference are invited to submit theoretical, empirical and experimental contributions.

Is corona the great leveller? Rich or poor, everyone can get sick from the virus. The measures to deal with the pandemic affect everyone equally: We all wear masks and the lockdown banishes us all to our homes. Or is corona an amplifier of existing and a cause for new inequalities? Important social and economic resources for coping with burdens, economic risks and availability of support by the welfare state are unequally distributed.

At the same time, new and old social divides are breaking open: Parents, especially working parents, face a particular burden in view of the closures of schools and childcare facilities and must often take over the schooling and care of children themselves. Also, people in large cities might be more affected by the crisis than people outside metropolitan areas. But the crisis also contributes to inequalities directly in the labor market: Many of the workers affected by the closures are found in the food service and personal services industries. But those particularly affected also include already disadvantaged groups such as temporary and marginal workers, who are more often in danger of losing their jobs and have less access to social protection. Low-income earners and people living in poverty may suffer particularly from the restrictions, as they have significantly fewer resources to cope with stress or deal with new challenges like home schooling. They may even be hit more often directly by the virus if they have to economize on personal protective measures. Similarly, self-employed face also specific challenges as they have often limited funding and assistance programs were not tailored to this group. At the same time, international comparisons reveal differences – not only are countries affected by the pandemic to varying degrees, but the economic and social consequences are also uneven. This raises the question of the role of social security systems and the labor market and economic policy responses.

Shortly after the pandemic, many researchers turned their attention to such and similar questions, and initial results were available in a short time. After a year of research, however, it is also clear that the observed effects of the crisis are not always uniform, but can differ significantly by the dimensions of inequality under study, by country, and also among different groups of people. In addition, aspects of data collection or measurement and the resulting possibilities for analysis are also likely to play a role. Against this background, this seminar series aims to bring together empirically rigorous contributions from the fields of sociology, economics and related fields on issues of social policy, social ad economic inequality following the Corona Crisis.

The conference focuses on technology, trade, and demographic changes and the ways they interact with employment, wages, and participation in the labor market, with a particular emphasis on the role of institutions. Understanding these relationships is key in assessing the performance of the labor market and for the design of effective labor market policies.

The conference will also host the 6th user conference of the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), bringing together researchers who work with the data provided by the FDZ, and facilitating exchange between researchers and FDZ staff.