The Microeconometrics Seminar: Every Tuesday at 12:15 pm.
Time: 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Date: 7th of November 2017
Place: Room 3001.
Daphné Skandalis (CREST) – Breaking News: Information About Firms’ Hiring Needs Affects the Direction of Job Search

Abstract:

Recent evidence suggests that posted job vacancies provide a poor signal of firms’ hiring needs. For job seekers, this translates into uncertainty about their probability of being hired when they apply to a vacancy. In this paper, I study how job seekers react when media outlets cover the expansion of a specific plant and thereby provide information about the hiring needs of the plant. I use new data about online job applications matched with administrative micro data about job seekers and firms’ vacancies and hires in France during 2014-2016. My empirical strategy exploits the quasi-random timing of media news in the short run. I estimate the impact of news on the applications sent to mentioned plants and the subsequent hiring in a differences- in-differences. I find that news coverage of the expansion of a plant increases its number of applicants by 60% in the following month. Job seekers who apply in reaction to the coverage have a good match quality and live further away than usual applicants. The average distance between applicants’ residence and plants’ location therefore increases by 27%–corresponding to 20km. Plants benefit from the diffusion of information as they hire a sizeable share of their additional applicants. Job seekers use the information to direct their search towards plants which have a relatively high hiring rate. But I also find evidence for displacement effects among job seekers. The inflow of applicants from further away decreases the hiring rate of local job seekers. Overall, these results suggest that low-cost interventions providing information about hiring needs could both improve the matching process and increase geographical mobility.

Organizers:
Laurent Davezies (CREST – ENSAE Paristech),  Arne Uhlendorff (CREST – ENSAE Paristech) & Yannick Guyonvarch (CREST – ENSAE ParisTech)
Sponsors:
CREST
Lunch registration:
food provided, no registration