Do job creation schemes improve the social integration and well-being of the long-term unemployed?

In this paper we analyze the effects of a German job creation scheme (JCS) on the social integration and well-being of long-term unemployed individuals. Using linked survey and administrative data for participants and a group of matched non-participants, we find significant positive effects of being employed within this program. They are larger for individuals with health impairments and above-average duration of welfare dependence. The program effects decline over time, which cannot be explained by decreasing levels of well-being and social integration of the participants. Instead, this decrease is driven by a rising share of controls who find a job and catch up to similar outcome levels as program participants. Overall, our results suggest that JCSs can be an efficient labor market policy instrument to improve the quality of life of the long-term unemployed

Job creation schemes in turbulent times

This paper analyzes the impact of job creation schemes (JCSs) on job search outcomes in the context of the turbulent East German labor market in the aftermath of the German reunification. High job destruction characterized the economic environment. JCSs were heavily used in order to cushion this development. Using data from 1990-1999 and building upon the timing-of-events approach, we estimate multivariate discrete time duration models taking selection based on both observed and unobserved heterogeneity into account. Our results indicate that participation in JCSs increases the unemployment duration mainly due to locking-in effects. However, twelve months after the program start the significantly negative impact on the job finding probability vanishes. We find evidence for effect heterogeneity. Our results suggest that female and highly skilled participants leave unemployment quicker than other groups, which results in highly skilled women benefiting from participation. However, we find no significant impact on post-unemployment employment stability. Our results are robust to allowing for random treatment effects. Also taking into account endogenous participation in training programs, endogenous censoring, or multiple treatment effects do not change the results

Essays on unemployment, job search behavior and policy interventions

This dissertation explores through which channels unemployment leads to exclusion from society and how policy interventions and technological innovations affect individual job search behavior and are able to bring unemployed persons back into the labor market. All four chapters contained in this dissertation are based on large individual-level data sets from Germany and aim at identifying causal relationships by employing different empirical methods. This thesis starts in the first chapter with an analysis of how job loss impacts different dimensions of social exclusion and shows that unemployment has detrimental economic and social effects. In the second chapter, which is co-authored by Annette Bergemann and Arne Uhlendorff, we study employment effects of participation in job creation schemes in the years after German reunification. We find that participation in job creation programs is beneficial for high skilled women in times of economic instability. In the third chapter, my co-authors Maximilian Blömer, Nicole Gürtzgen, Holger Stichnoth, Gerard van den Berg and I estimate an equilibrium job search model and simulate the introduction of different minimum wage levels. The results indicate that minimum wage effects on unemployment are non-linear and highly dependent on the labor market structure. In the last chapter, which is co-authored by Nicole Gürtzgen, André Nolte and Gerard van den Berg, we find that high-speed internet leads to higher reemployment probabilities with a certain time delay. This effect is particularly pronounced for unemployed males

Unemployment and social exclusion

This paper analyzes the economic and social consequences of job loss which contribute to exclusion from society based on German linked survey and administrative data. To study the causal relationship between unemployment and multiple dimensions of social marginalization, I combine inverse propensity score weighting with a difference-in-differences approach. The results suggest that job loss has particularly detrimental effects on the subjective perception of social integration, life satisfaction, the access to economic resources and mental health. Moreover, this paper shows that becoming unemployed hinders the fulfillment of psychosocial needs that are typically associated with working, such as social status and higher self-efficacy. The effects of job loss are long-lasting, growing more profound the longer the duration of unemployment and persisting following reemployment. Looking at effect heterogeneity, I find that having a partner and being highly educated reduces the negative effects of job loss

Performance feedback and job search behavior: Empirical evidence from linked employer-employee data

In this paper, we study whether performance feedback can serve as an instrument for firms to increase employee retention. Feedback on the relative performance may affect individual job search behavior differently depending on workers’ relative rank among their peers. In line with these considerations, empirical evidence based on panel employer-employee data shows that employees performing below the median decrease their turnover intentions after the implementation of a performance feedback system at the establishment level. We find no effect for employees performing above the median

Covid-19 und die sozialen Folgen für Arbeitslose : Eine Bewertung basierend auf Abschätzungen mit Individualdaten

Als Folge der Covid-19 Krise ist mit einer weiteren Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit zu rechnen. Neben den materiellen drohen soziale Einbußen. Erfahrungen aus der jüngeren Vergangenheit können dabei helfen, das mögliche Ausmaß besser zu verstehen. Es wird eine vordringliche Aufgabe der Politik werden, die Zunahme der Arbeitslosigkeit möglichst zu verhindern und deren oftmals gravierende soziale Folgen für die Betroffenen einzugrenzen

Regional structural change and the effects of job loss

Routine-intensive occupations have been declining in many countries, but how does this affect individual workers’ careers if this decline is particularly severe in their local labor market? This paper uses administrative data from Germany and a matched difference-in-differences approach to show that the individual costs of job loss strongly depend on the task-bias of regional structural change. Workers displaced from routine manual occupations have substantially higher and more persistent employment and wage losses in regions where such occupations decline the most. Regional and occupational mobility partly serve as an adjustment mechanism, but come at high cost as these switches also involve losses in firm wage premia. Non-displaced workers, by contrast, remain largely unaffected by structural change

Does online search improve the match quality of new hires?

This paper studies the effects of the high-speed internet expansion on the match quality of new hires. They combine data on internet availability at the local level with German individual register and vacancy data. Results show that internet availability has no major impact on the stability of new matches and their wages. The authors confirm these findings using vacancy data, by explicitly comparing match outcomes of online and non-online recruits. Further results show that online recruiting not only raises the number of applicants and the share of unsuitable candidates per vacancy, but also induces employers to post more vacancies

Evaluation des Bundesprogramms "Soziale Teilhabe am Arbeitsmarkt": fünfter Bericht - Wirkungen nach Programmende

Das Bundesprogramm "Soziale Teilhabe am Arbeitsmarkt" zielte auf die Verbesserung der sozialen Teilhabe von arbeitsmarktfernen Langzeitleistungsbeziehenden im SGB II, die entweder mit Kindern in einer Bedarfsgemeinschaft lebten und/oder auf Grund von gesundheitlichen Einschränkungen besonderer Förderung bedurften. Es wurde durch das Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS) initiiert und startete in den Jobcentern sukzessive ab September 2015. Die Programmlaufzeit endete am 31. Dezember 2018. An dem Bundesprogramm nahmen etwa 21.000 Personen in knapp der Hälfte aller Jobcenter teil. Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht ergänzt den 2019 erschienenen Endbericht um quantitative Wirkungsabschätzungen nach Auslaufen des Bundesprogramms. Analysiert werden insbesondere die durchschnittlichen Wirkungen der abgeschlossenen Teilnahme am Bundesprogramm auf die soziale Teilhabe der Geförderten, der Zusammenhang zwischen sozialer Teilhabe und dem Erwerbsstatus nach Programmende sowie Wirkungsheterogenitäten. Die aktuellen und die früheren Befunde aus dem Endbericht werden verglichen. Es folgt ein Fazit für die Herausforderungen der öffentlich geförderten Beschäftigung und die forschungsbasierten Abschätzungen ihrer Wirksamkeit.The Federal Programme "Social Inclusion in the Labour Market" aimed to improve the social inclusion of long-term benefit recipients of the SGB II who were far from the labour market and who either lived with children in a community of need and/or required special support due to health restrictions. It was initiated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and started in the job centres successively from September 2015. The programme period ended on 31 December 2018. Approximately 21,000 individuals in almost half of all job centres participated in the Federal Programme. The present research report complements the final report published in 2019 with analyses conducted after the expiry of the Federal Programme. The current report assesses the average treatment effects on the social inclusion of participants about one year after the end of the programme, the link between social inclusion and employment status, as well as effect heterogeneities. The findings are compared with the results from the 2019 final report. The conclusions contain a critical reflection on the challenges of publicly subsidised employment and the research design