Coworkers, Networks, and Job-Search Outcomes among Displaced Workers

Perihan Saygin, Andrea Weber and Michèle A. Weynandt

ILR Review, 2021, vol. 74, issue 1, 95-130

Abstract: This article examines the mechanisms by which social networks affect the labor market outcomes of displaced workers. The authors draw on administrative records for the universe of private-sector employment in Austria to identify work-related networks among former coworkers. They analyze the importance of social networks for both job seekers and hiring firms. For job seekers, results indicate that having a high share of former coworkers who are currently employed in expanding firms improves job-finding success. For firms seeking to hire new employees, the authors find that a firm is twice as likely to hire a displaced worker with a former-coworker link to one of their current employees than to hire a worker displaced from the same closing firm but without a link. These results suggest that information about job opportunities and demand-side conditions is transmitted in work-related networks between workers and firms.

Keywords: social networks; job displacement; plant closure; referral hiring; job search (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:74:y:2021:i:1:p:95-130

DOI: 10.1177/0019793919881988

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