Search Results
Discussion Paper
Why Is the Job-Finding Rate Still Low?
Fluctuations in unemployment are mostly driven by fluctuations in the job-finding prospects of unemployed workers?except at the onset of recessions, according to various research papers (see, for example, Shimer [2005, 2012] and Elsby, Hobijn, and Sahin [2010]). With job losses back to their pre-recession levels, the job-finding rate is arguably one of the most important indicators to watch. This rate?defined as the fraction of unemployed workers in a given month who find jobs in the consecutive month?provides a good measure of how easy it is to find jobs in the economy. The chart below ...
Working Paper
Recall and Unemployment
We document in the Survey of Income and Program Participation covering 1990- 2013 that a surprisingly large share of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell and experience very different unemployment and employment outcomes than job switchers. The probability of recall is much less procyclical and volatile than the probability of finding a new employer. We add to a quantitative, and otherwise canonical, search-and-matching model of the labor market a recall option, which can be activated freely following aggregate and job-specific productivity shocks. Recall and search ...