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75% of firm managers overestimate the cognitive ability of tertiary-educated applicants (perceiving a tertiary Raven score premium $>4\times$ the actual difference of 5.3 vs 5.0 questions); 55% of high-school jobseekers expect permanent employment within 1 year compared to 5.8% actual observed employment.
Cash transfers increased Syrian wage employment by 5.2 percentage points at 2 months (p = 0.017) and 3.8 percentage points at 4 months (p = 0.027), while raising earnings by 65%. In contrast, cash had no significant effect on Jordanians (-0.007 at 2 months, -0.025 at 4 months), as Jordanians had 25% higher baseline daily expenditure, searched 30% more intensely, and filed twice as many job applications in the control group.
Relying heavily on informal social networks for job recruitment creates long-term structural barriers that perpetuate socioeconomic inequality across demographic groups. Exclusively circulating employment opportunities within closed social circles prevents non-connected individuals from accessing economic mobility regardless of their individual skill level.
45 percent of casual labor market participants in urban Kolkata found jobs through social connections, demonstrating that informal network reliance concentrates employment access within existing social circles unless counterbalanced by employer screening incentives.
Empirical results are forthcoming as the evaluation is ongoing, while baseline survey data highlights that 56% of Indian employers face hiring difficulties and 2.3% of the workforce holds formal skilling [7, 8].
Job seekers who received public branded certificates were 5.2 percentage points more likely to be employed, increased total hours worked by 20%, and earned US$130 over 3 months (generating an earnings gain 5.6 times greater than the per-participant program cost).