The Intensity of Job Search and Search Duration

Abstract

We use panel data on individual applications to job openings on a job search website to study search intensity and search duration. Our data allow us to control for the composition of job seekers and changes in the number of available job openings over the duration of search. We find that (1) the number of applications sent by a job seeker declines over the duration of search, and (2) longer-duration job seekers send relatively more applications per week throughout their entire search. The latter finding contradicts the implications of standard labor search models. We argue that these models fail to capture an income effect in search effort that causes job seekers with the lowest returns to search to exert the highest effort. We present evidence in support of this idea.

Job Search Behavior over the Business Cycle

“…However, contrary to our and Faberman and Kudlyak's (2014) findings, they find evidence for a discouragement effect-that individuals respond negatively to a deteriorating labor market conditions. 3 Our main finding that search effort is countercyclical contrasts some of the recent work on modeling labor market fluctuations.…”

“…They find that increases in job search absorbed two to six percent of the foregone work hours. Faberman and Kudlyak (2014) is another paper which uses the micro data from a job search website to study the relationship between search intensity and search duration. While their dataset is completely different from ours, their results are broadly consistent with our findings in that they find that the number of applications sent by a job seeker per week is significantly higher in metropolitan areas with more slack labor markets.…”

Heterogeneity and Unemployment Dynamics

“…This enables us to directly infer how inflows of newly unemployed and exit probabilities for currently unemployed type H and L individuals who share the same observed characteristics vary over time. This paper is the first to consider the dynamic behavior of unobserved heterogeneity within groups of in-2 See for example Heckman and Singer (1984a,b), Katz and Meyer (1990a,b), Acemoglu (1995), van den Berg and van Ours (1996), Ljungqvist and Sargent (1998), van den Berg and van der Klaauw (2001) Abbring, van den Berg and van Ours (2002), Kroft, Lange and Notowidigso (2013), Mueller (2010, 2012), Eriksson and Rooth (2014) and Faberman and Kudlyak (2014).…”

“…Berg and van Ours (1996) we will refer to this possibility as "genuine duration dependence". Individuals lose human capital the longer they are unemployed (Acemoglu, 1995;Ljungqvist and Sargent, 1998), employers may statistically discriminate against those who have been unemployed for longer (Eriksson and Rooth, 2014;Kroft, Lange, and Notowidigdo, 2013), and individuals may search less the longer they have been unemployed (Faberman and Kudlyak, 2014). We will refer to such negative genuine duration dependence, that is, a condition where a longer period spent in unemployment directly reduces the probability of finding a job, as "unemployment scarring."…”

Heterogeneity and Unemployment Dynamics

“…Following van den Berg and van Ours (1996) we will refer to this possibility as "genuine duration dependence". Individuals lose human capital the longer they are unemployed (Acemoglu, 1995;Ljungqvist and Sargent, 1998), employers may statistically discriminate against those who have been unemployed for longer (Eriksson and Rooth, 2014;Kroft, Lange, and Notowidigdo, 2013) 2 , and individuals may search less the longer they have been unemployed (Faberman and Kudlyak, 2014). We will refer to such negative genuine duration dependence, that is, a condition where a longer period spent in unemployment directly reduces the probability of …nding a job, as "unemployment scarring."…”