Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/331340 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. TI 2025-044/V
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
We present findings from an at-scale randomized trial of a government program provid- ing public employment services in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with up-to-date vacancy infor- mation. Before the program, women with relatively less education searched more narrowly with worse labor market outcomes than the rest of our representative sample of relevant job seekers. These women also have lower direct intervention take-up than the rest of the sample. However, only these women significantly increase applications, receive more offers, shift from household enterprise work to wage employment, and experience higher earnings in response to the intervention. These employment impacts are larger than can be explained by vacancies directly curated through the intervention. Instead, these women adjust search behavior, ex- pectations, and employment aspirations more broadly. Notably, offers come through friends and family networks, their modal baseline search method, underscoring the potential role of social networks in disseminating employment information to the most marginalized job seekers.
Subjects: 
Public Employment Services
Labor Market Frictions
Marginalized Job Seekers
Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)
JEL: 
J08
J16
J64
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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