How unemployment scarring affects skilled young workers: evidence from a factorial survey of Swiss recruiters

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  • Universität Basel
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
  • University of Luxembourg
  • University of Bern
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Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer7
FachzeitschriftJournal for Labour Market Research
Jahrgang52
Ausgabenummer1
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 1 Dez. 2018
Extern publiziertJa

Abstract

We ask how employers contribute to unemployment scarring in the recruitment process in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. By drawing on recruitment theories, we aim to better understand how recruiters assess different patterns of unemployment in a job candidate’s CV and how this affects the chances of young applicants being considered for a vacancy. We argue that in contexts with tight school-work linkage and highly standardised Vocational Education and Training systems, the detrimental effect of early unemployment depends on how well the applicant’s profile matches the requirements of the advertised position. To test this assumption, we surveyed Swiss recruiters who were seeking to fill positions during the time of data collection. We employed a factorial survey experiment that tested how the (un)employment trajectories in hypothetical young job applicants’ CV affected their chances of being considered for a real vacancy. Our results show that unemployment decreases the perceived suitability of an applicant for a specific job, which implies there is a scarring effect of unemployment that increases with the duration of being unemployed. But we also found that these effects are moderated by how well the applicant’s profile matches the job’s requirements. Overall, the worse the match between applicant’s profile and the job profile, the smaller are the scarring effects of unemployment. In sum, our findings contribute to the literature by revealing considerable heterogeneity in the scarring effects of unemployment. Our findings further suggest that the scarring effects of unemployment need to be studied with regard to country-specific institutional settings, the applicants’ previous education and employment experiences, and the job characteristics.

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How unemployment scarring affects skilled young workers: evidence from a factorial survey of Swiss recruiters. / Shi, Lulu P.; Imdorf, Christian; Samuel, Robin et al.
in: Journal for Labour Market Research, Jahrgang 52, Nr. 1, 7, 01.12.2018.

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Shi LP, Imdorf C, Samuel R, Sacchi S. How unemployment scarring affects skilled young workers: evidence from a factorial survey of Swiss recruiters. Journal for Labour Market Research. 2018 Dez 1;52(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s12651-018-0239-7
Shi, Lulu P. ; Imdorf, Christian ; Samuel, Robin et al. / How unemployment scarring affects skilled young workers : evidence from a factorial survey of Swiss recruiters. in: Journal for Labour Market Research. 2018 ; Jahrgang 52, Nr. 1.
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abstract = "We ask how employers contribute to unemployment scarring in the recruitment process in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. By drawing on recruitment theories, we aim to better understand how recruiters assess different patterns of unemployment in a job candidate{\textquoteright}s CV and how this affects the chances of young applicants being considered for a vacancy. We argue that in contexts with tight school-work linkage and highly standardised Vocational Education and Training systems, the detrimental effect of early unemployment depends on how well the applicant{\textquoteright}s profile matches the requirements of the advertised position. To test this assumption, we surveyed Swiss recruiters who were seeking to fill positions during the time of data collection. We employed a factorial survey experiment that tested how the (un)employment trajectories in hypothetical young job applicants{\textquoteright} CV affected their chances of being considered for a real vacancy. Our results show that unemployment decreases the perceived suitability of an applicant for a specific job, which implies there is a scarring effect of unemployment that increases with the duration of being unemployed. But we also found that these effects are moderated by how well the applicant{\textquoteright}s profile matches the job{\textquoteright}s requirements. Overall, the worse the match between applicant{\textquoteright}s profile and the job profile, the smaller are the scarring effects of unemployment. In sum, our findings contribute to the literature by revealing considerable heterogeneity in the scarring effects of unemployment. Our findings further suggest that the scarring effects of unemployment need to be studied with regard to country-specific institutional settings, the applicants{\textquoteright} previous education and employment experiences, and the job characteristics.",
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T2 - evidence from a factorial survey of Swiss recruiters

AU - Shi, Lulu P.

AU - Imdorf, Christian

AU - Samuel, Robin

AU - Sacchi, Stefan

N1 - Funding information: The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This study was funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI (Grant Number 15.0089, 649395) as part of the Horizon 2020 project ‘Negotiating early job-insecurity and labour market exclusion in Europe—NEGOTIATE’(Horizon 2020, Societal Challenge 6, H2020—YOUNG-SOCIETY-2014, YOUNG-1-2014).

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N2 - We ask how employers contribute to unemployment scarring in the recruitment process in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. By drawing on recruitment theories, we aim to better understand how recruiters assess different patterns of unemployment in a job candidate’s CV and how this affects the chances of young applicants being considered for a vacancy. We argue that in contexts with tight school-work linkage and highly standardised Vocational Education and Training systems, the detrimental effect of early unemployment depends on how well the applicant’s profile matches the requirements of the advertised position. To test this assumption, we surveyed Swiss recruiters who were seeking to fill positions during the time of data collection. We employed a factorial survey experiment that tested how the (un)employment trajectories in hypothetical young job applicants’ CV affected their chances of being considered for a real vacancy. Our results show that unemployment decreases the perceived suitability of an applicant for a specific job, which implies there is a scarring effect of unemployment that increases with the duration of being unemployed. But we also found that these effects are moderated by how well the applicant’s profile matches the job’s requirements. Overall, the worse the match between applicant’s profile and the job profile, the smaller are the scarring effects of unemployment. In sum, our findings contribute to the literature by revealing considerable heterogeneity in the scarring effects of unemployment. Our findings further suggest that the scarring effects of unemployment need to be studied with regard to country-specific institutional settings, the applicants’ previous education and employment experiences, and the job characteristics.

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