Useful Vacancy Prioritization
RCTReview
Public employment agencies often focus on collecting short-term, temporary job postings that briefly lower headline unemployment figures without placing jobseekers into stable, long-term employment.
Picture this
Instead of filling a leaky bucket by constantly finding temporary day-labor jobs for workers, a placement agency focuses strictly on securing permanent contracts that give workers fixed monthly incomes and long-term financial stability.
What the evidence says
Targeting useful vacancies led to a 24% increase in permanent contract vacancy listings (0.047 vacancies, p < 0.01) and a 10.2% increase in permanent contract hires (0.046 hires, p < 0.05) yielding 17.5 additional theoretical workdays per firm (p < 0.05), while temporary/fixed-term hires saw no significant net increase.
- Who was studied
- N = 7,438 small and medium-sized enterprises in France across 129 local employment agencies.
- How
- Stratified randomized controlled trial targeting agency outreach toward permanent open-ended contracts (CDI) versus fixed-term/temp positions.
What to do
Direct public employment counselors to focus employer outreach exclusively on soliciting open-ended permanent contracts rather than temporary or short-term vacancies.
From the source
"During the intensive and sanctuary phases, a strong emphasis was put on collecting 'useful vacancies' (offres utiles) that would benefit registered jobseekers by getting them back into stable employment. This entailed a special focus on encouraging the creation and posting of vacancies corresponding to jobs in permanent, or open-ended contracts..."
Are_Active_Labor_Market_Policies_Directed_at_Firms_Effective_Evidence.pdf