What makes a good caseworker?

Johan Vikström (), Martin Söderström () and Jonas Cederlöf
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Johan Vikström: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Martin Söderström: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

No 2021:9, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: How do caseworkers affect job finding and what characterizes a productive caseworker? To answer these questions we exploit variation coming from the fact that many local employment offices in Sweden assign job seekers to caseworkers based on their date of birth. We couple this identification strategy with fine-grained administrative data on both caseworkers and job seekers. Estimation of caseworker fixed effects reveals sizable variation in overall caseworker value-added. Female caseworkers perform better than male caseworkers and caseworkers with two years of experience outperform caseworkers with less experience. Cognitive ability and personal experience of unemployment are not related to caseworker performance. Based on the actions taken by the caseworkers we show that caseworker strategies are important. Analyses of caseworker–job seeker matching show that matching based on previous labor market experiences or gender leads to better outcomes.

Keywords: unemployed workers; labor market policy; caseworkers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2021-06-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
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