Training Vouchers and Labour Market Outcomes in Chile

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of a training voucher programme in Chile, called Bono Trabajador Activo, on two labour market outcomes: monthly earnings and employment probabilities. Using detailed administrative datasets of the National Employment Service and the unemployment insurance system, we combine matching and difference‐in‐difference estimators to measure these effects up to five years after the application to the programme. Our main results indicate that the voucher has an overall positive impact on earnings, on the order of 3.2 per cent, and a small negative impact on formal employment. We find that the programme particularly improves earnings for less educated workers.

Regional Discontinuities and the Effectiveness of Further Training Subsidies for Low-Skilled Employees

“…A number of studies evaluate training programs that are open to both employed and unemployed workers. The Chilean training voucher program known as Bono Trabajador Activo (BTA) (Novella, Rucci, Vazquez, and Kaplan 2018) covers the costs of training courses for workers who contributed to social securities for a certain minimum duration before applying for the program. After five years, the program decreases employment probability by 2 percentage points, but increases earnings by 5% for low-educated workers.…”

The Long-Term Effects of Job Training on Labor Market and Skills Outcomes in Chile

“…Having expanded the targeted population of FOTRAB to individuals from different backgrounds could have also affected the effectiveness found by the non-experimental evaluations of the precedent programs (Duflo et al, 2011). Finally, as with other SENCE programs (Novella et al, 2017), the program might have benefit from offering vocational orientation and labor market information (e.g., returns to certain training) aiming at improving the match between applicants and the supply of training courses. Note: This table reports the effect of being assigned to and participate in one of the course types on the probability to pay social security, hours worked, the probability to be unemployed, and the probability to being inactive.…”

Mastering the transition: A synthetic literature review of trade adaptation policies

“…These heterogeneous effects persist due to the low geographic mobility of workers, and in particular of low-skilled and older workers, who do not move to job opportunities created in other local labour markets and accept wage losses, prolonged unemployment or even exit the labour force. Factors explaining this low mobility relate to low quality and supply of transport infrastructure, housing market distortions, job search costs and matching frictions, social costs of moving families, or a limited ability to learn and adapt to new social contexts (Hyman, 2018[72]; Autor et al, 2014[64]; Gathmann, Helm and Schönberg, 2018 [91]; Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2016 [92]; Notowidigdo, 2020 [93]). Limited access to financial markets to finance training investments and moving costs as well as missing training opportunities in local labour markets can also be an important factor (Lochner and Monge-Naranjo, 2011 [94]; Topalova, 2010 [95]).…”