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Unemployed and their Caseworkers: Should they be Friends or Foes?

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  • Stefanie Behncke
  • Markus Fröhlich
  • Michael Lechner

Abstract

In many countries, caseworkers in a public employment office have the dual roles of counselling and monitoring unemployed persons. These roles often conflict with each other leading to important caseworker heterogeneity: Some consider providing services to their clients and satisfying their demands as their primary task. Others may however pursue their strategies even against the will of the unemployed person. They may assign job assignments and labour market programmes without consent of the unemployed person. Based on a very detailed linked jobseeker-caseworker dataset, we investigate the effects of caseworkers' cooperativeness on the employment probabilities of their clients. Modified statistical matching methods reveal that caseworkers who place less emphasis on a cooperative and harmonic relationship with their clients increase their employment chances in the short and medium term.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefanie Behncke & Markus Fröhlich & Michael Lechner, 2007. "Unemployed and their Caseworkers: Should they be Friends or Foes?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2007 2007-45, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:dp2007:2007-45
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public employment services; unemployment; statistical matching methods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models

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