Seek and Ye Shall Find: How Search Requirements Affect Job Finding Rates of Older Workers

Abstract

Unemployment insurance recipients in the Netherlands were for a long time exempted from the requirement to actively search for a job when they reached the age of 57.5. We study how this exemption affected the job finding rates of the recipients involved. We find evidence that the job finding rate of unemployed workers who were getting close to the age of 57.5 is reduced in anticipation of the removal of the search requirement.In addition we find a large negative effect on job finding rates of the actual removal of the search requirement. Apparently, even for persons with seemingly poor job prospects search requirements have a positive effect on finding rates.Keywords: eligibility criteria, unemployment benefits, job finding, older workers JEL-codes: C41; H55; J64; J65 * We thank Jaap Abbring, Jonneke Bolhaar, Adriaan Kalwij, Peter Kooreman, Tobias Klein, Maarten Lindeboom, Bas van der Klaauw, and seminar participants at Tilburg University and VU University Amsterdam for helpful comments. The estimates in this paper are based on own calculations using various micro datasets made available through a remote access facility by Statistics Netherlands. We thank Sander Tuit for constructing the dataset we use in our analysis.

Perspectieven voor interventies in de bijstand

“…Negatieve prikkels, zoals opgelegde financiële sancties en kortingen, zijn niet noodzakelijkerwijs de beste manier om mensen te prikkelen mee te werken en zich aan de regels te houden. Intussen laat economisch onderzoek zien dat er positieve korte termijn werkgelegenheidseffecten van sancties uitgaan (men accepteert sneller werk (Abbring, Van den Berg & Van Ours, 2005;Hullegie & Van Ours, 2014)). Daarnaast heeft actieve werkzoekbemiddeling vooral effect op werkhervatting bij kortdurende werkloosheid, maar minder bij langdurige werkloosheid (Koning, 2009).…”

Can unemployment benefit cuts improve employment and earnings?

“…Also, the reform was first discussed in the parliament in February 2001 and approved by popular vote in November 2002, not long before the policy change was implemented. Changes in unemployment insurance requirements may affect job seeker behavior already in advance (Hullegie and van Ours, 2014). We explain below how we deal with anticipation effects by considering only job seeker who entered unemployment long before the reform or after the reform started.…”