Social Job Network Expansion
RCTClinical Trial
Job seekers in low-income urban labor markets frequently face informational bottlenecks and limited employment channels, restricting their access to unadvertised vacancy listings.
Picture this
Joining a short-term workplace is like gaining access to a private neighborhood bulletin board where members continuously share tips about upcoming job openings, allowing newly connected workers to hear about employment opportunities that are never publicly advertised.
What the evidence says
Acquiring short-term work experience increased the probability of receiving any job referral by 22.2 percentage points (p < 0.05) and increased the overall social network index by 0.306 standard deviations (p < 0.10) over the 8-month follow-up period.
- Who was studied
- N = 215 urban Malawian male job seekers surveyed at the 8-month follow-up in Lilongwe, Malawi.
- How
- Instrumental variables (IV) regression model estimating the effect of acquiring 5 days of work experience on social job network interactions and referral channels.
What to do
Structure active labor market programs to incorporate collaborative tasks and supervisor interactions that foster informal job referral connections among participants.
From the source
"In sum, the broadened social (job) network acquired through this process seems to be a contributing factor in the large realized wage returns."
Employment Exposure: Employment and Wage Effects in Urban Malawi