Can job search assistance improve the labour market integration of refugees? Evidence from a field experiment

Michele Battisti (), Yvonne Giesing and Nadzeya Laurentsyeva ()

Labour Economics, 2019, vol. 61, issue C

Abstract: We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the impact of job search assistance on the employment of recently arrived refugees in Germany. The treatment group received job-matching support: an NGO identified suitable vacancies and sent the refugees’ CVs to employers. Six months after the start of the treatment, we find no evidence for positive treatment effects on employment. However, after twelve months, we detect positive treatment effects: marginally significant for the full sample and larger in magnitude and significant for lower educated refugees and those who have not yet received a refugee status. These individuals face higher uncertainty about their residence status, they do not search effectively, lack access to alternative support programmes and may be disregarded by employers due to perceived higher hiring costs. Our results suggest that personalised job search assistance can improve labour market integration of these refugee groups by alleviating labour market frictions.

Keywords: Refugees; Labour market integration; Job search assistance; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092753711930065X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Can job search assistance improve the labour market integration of refugees? Evidence from a field experiment (2019)
Working Paper: Can Job Search Assistance Improve the Labour Market Integration for Refugees? Evidence from a Field Experiment (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:61:y:2019:i:c:s092753711930065x

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2019.07.001

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().