The Evolution of Job Applications and Job-Finding Rates since the 1980s

The advent of the information and communications technology revolution in the 1980s introduced significant improvements in search technologies, changing the way unemployed workers look for jobs. Previously, workers had to go door-to-door to look for a job, but they can now easily access information on a job’s requirements, offered wages and benefits, and work environment through online jobsearch platforms. They can also apply to many jobs in a short period of time. How have these revolutionary changes in the way workers search and apply for jobs affected jobfinding rates over time? In Job Applications and Labor Market Flows, we use data from the Employment Opportunities Pilot Projects (EOPP) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) to empirically document the evolution of job applications and outcomes since the 1980s.1 The EOPP was designed to analyze the impacts of an intensive job search and a work-and-training program. It captures unemployment spells and job-search activities of unemployed workers between 1979 and 1980. Meanwhile, the SCE captures respondents’ labor market activities and outcomes of unemployed workers between 2013 and 2019. Our sample from both datasets consists of unemployed individuals 25 to 65 years of age who submitted at least one job application during their unemployment spell.2