Effectiveness of a job vacancy referral scheme

The public employment service (PES) makes use in many countries of vacancy referrals as to facilitate the matching between unemployed workers and vacancies. Based on a 'timing-of-events' approach to control for selective participation, this study evaluates whether this policy instrument en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IZA journal of labor policy 2017-12, Vol.6 (15), p.1-24, Article 15
Main Authors: Bollens, Joost, Cockx, Bart
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active labor market policy
Classification
Economic Policy
Economics
Economics and Finance
Email
Employment
Evaluation
Intervention
Job vacancies
Labor Economics
Original Article
Participation
Population Economics
Referrals
Social Policy
Software
Timing-of-events method
Transition to employment
Unemployed
Vacancy referral
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Summary:The public employment service (PES) makes use in many countries of vacancy referrals as to facilitate the matching between unemployed workers and vacancies. Based on a 'timing-of-events' approach to control for selective participation, this study evaluates whether this policy instrument enhanced the transition to employment in Flanders (region in northern Belgium). Three referral types are distinguished: (1) referrals actively matched by a caseworker by phone or by e-mail; (2) automatic referrals, in which the match is accomplished by a software without caseworker intervention; and (3) invitations, in which the referral is transmitted to the unemployed in a meeting with a caseworker. All three referral instruments are found to be effective, even many months after the transmission of the referral: the first and third referral types more than triples, respectively, double the transition rate to employment both in short- and long-run, while the automatic referrals enhance this rate by 50% in the first 2 months and double it in the long-run.
ISSN:2193-9004
2193-9004
DOI:10.1186/s40173-017-0094-0