What Kind of Job-broker is the Public Employment Service? Evidence from Finnish Job Vacancy Midrodata in 2002-2003

This study analyses the job-broking function of the Finnish Public Employment Service (PES). The empirical analysis is based on the Finnish job vacancy microdata in 2002 and 2003 including information on over 320,000 job vacancies each year. The open job vacancy period, the recruitment duration and various outcomes of the filling process are analysed mainly by applying logit regression estimations. As the duration of the recruitment process is of ultimate importance in taking into use the potential employment hidden into open job vacancies, the factors which have an effect on duration are analysed. Low risk for both long vacancy period and recruitment duration are found for job duration less than 3 months, filling the vacancy with PES job-seeker and using the job assignment. The effects of two alternative or additional policy methods, job assignments and job announcements are found consistent in all estimations: the more selective job assignment which may lead to sanctions for the job-seeker is much more effective when filling the vacancy with PES applicant than the job announcement of purely informative character, which seems to have little or no effect at all on the filling of vacancies. A policy conclusion is drawn to recommend cutting the excessive and costly use of announcements and to selectively increase the volume of assignments in cooperation with the employers.