Job search and matching

Overview

How people search for and match to jobs reflects how well the labor market is functioning for both workers and employers. Frictions that inhibit effective, efficient searches and matches can lead to worse outcomes for both. New search technologies, including online platforms assisted by artificial intelligence, could improve search and matching but raise questions about their equity and effectiveness. And understanding how switching jobs and occupations affects workers’ career paths and economic trajectories is also critical to improving mobility.

Working Knowledge

Job search and matching Last updated on September 24, 2024

Research Summary

The Prison Credential Dilemma: Insights into Applying for Jobs with Qualifications Earned during Incarceration

Credentials typically help job seekers demonstrate their abilities to obtain better-paying jobs. One study, however, suggests that credentials earned in prison present job seekers with a dilemma: reveal their incarceration and showcase their qualifications or obscure both. Interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals in the United States reveal strategies and tactics deployed to improve labor market outcomes and implications.

Annabel Stattelman Scanlan

Last updated on September 24, 2024

Job search and matching March 12, 2024

Research Summary

Self-Employment Savvy: The Relationship between Financial Literacy and Working Independently

Individuals with higher levels of financial literacy are more likely to work for themselves than participate in traditional employment, no matter their race or ethnicity. This relationship is even stronger for women, demonstrating the importance of financial education and confidence-building in an economy where non-White and female workers face significant barriers to self-employment.

Annabel Stattelman Scanlan

March 12, 2024

Job search and matching March 05, 2024

Video

WorkRise Shorts: “Whole Human Hiring” Practices in the Workplace, with Clayton Lord

March 05, 2024

Job search and matching February 13, 2024

Research Summary

Minimum Wages Create Opportunities for Good Jobs and Better Business Productivity

Research on minimum wages in the United States finds that, contrary to frequent arguments against these policies, they often raise wages, moving low-wage workers into better jobs and benefiting companies’ productivity.

Joe Peck

February 13, 2024

Research

Job search and matching Brief August 09, 2023

Search and Matching for Jobseekers

Each month, millions of workers in the United States move into or out of jobs. For workers in low-wage employment, transitions to new, higher-paying positions are an important driver of upward economic mobility. For those out of work, regaining…

Joe Peck , William J. Congdon

WorkRise Research

August 09, 2023

Job search and matching Report July 20, 2022

Search and Matching in Modern Labor Markets: A Landscape Report

This landscape report synthesizes research on how job seekers find work and how employers post and fill open positions in the labor market. It also explores frictions experienced by both parties and implications for workers’ economic mobility.

Alexander W. Bartik, Bryan A. Stuart

WorkRise Research

July 20, 2022

Job search and matching Executive Summary January 14, 2022

Rise with the STARs

New research from WorkRise grantee Opportunity@Work demonstrates the harm and exclusion workers without four-year degrees who are “skilled through alternative routes” (STARs) experience in the labor market.

Papia Debroy, Justin Heck

Grantee Research

January 14, 2022