The Intensity of Job Search and Search Duration

Abstract: We use panel data on individual applications to job openings on a job search website to study search intensity and search duration. Our data allow us to control for the composition of job seekers and changes in the number of available job openings over the duration of search. We find that (1) the number of applications sent by a job seeker declines over the duration of search, and (2) longer-duration job seekers send relatively more applications per week throughout their entire search. The latter finding contradicts the implications of standard labor search models. We argue that these models fail to capture instances where job seekers with the lowest returns to search exert the highest effort. We present evidence in support of this idea.

Keywords: Job applications, vacancies, labor market search effort, search duration.

Presentations: WEAI, "New Data and New Questions: Implications for Macroeconomics" the Center for the Advanced Study of Economic Efficiency (http://casee.asu.edu), Arizona State University (Nov 2016), SOLE (June 2015)*, SED (June 2014)*, 2013 Comparative Analysis of Enterprise Data Conference (2013)*, CIREQ Labor Workshop in Montreal: Micro and Macro Perspectives on Unemployment, University of Notre Dame (2013)*, NBER SI, Shimer-Rogerson-Wright Group (2013)*, Kansas City FED*, System Applied Microeconomics Conference (2013)*, 3rd Ifo Conference on Macroeconomics and Survey Data (2012)*