Exit from registered unemployment: Estimating the impact of individual characteristics

Abstract

The subject of this study is the individual characteristics of the unemployed, which determine the speed of exit from registered unemployment to various employment options or economic inactivity. The relevance of such assessments is determined by the reform of the State Regional Employment Services, which began in 2019. In the very beginning of the reform it is important to understand which citizens, with which individual characteristics, are employed through the State Regional Employment Services and for which jobs. The article shows with whom the state employment centers are already working quite effectively, and which categories of citizens are still more successful in finding work on their own. The Tyumen region has become one of 16 pilot subjects of the Russian Federation in which the transition to a new type of the State Regional Employment Service started earlier than in most Russian regions. In addition in 2019 the institution of paying benefits to registered unemployed people has changed. That is why in our study we refer to the data for 2019, kindly provided to the authors of the article by the Employment Service of the Tyumen region. The purpose of this work is to assess the influence of individual characteristics of the unemployed on the duration of stay in the status of a registered unemployed. Estimates of the Kaplan-Meier function to determine the exit from unemployment were carried out for various socio-demographic groups, taking into account gender, age and educational heterogeneity of individuals, as well as differences in their place of residence. The study was carried out on data provided by the employment services of the Tyumen region for 2019. The results showed that individuals with a low level of human capital (without higher education), as well as those who lived in a village and / or agreed to temporary employment, were the fastest to get employed with the help of employment services. Those who found work on their own, as a rule, got employed in higher career positions. The least qualified unemployed are the fastest to join the group of economically inactive people. The obtained results allow us to conclude that the modernization of the employment service, increasing its role in employment is impossible without the formation of a more diverse bank of vacancies, close cooperation with employers and the formation of effective approaches to the employment of unemployed with a high level of qualifications.