Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Examining Barriers to Job Placement in Summer Youth Employment Programs
Summer Youth Employment Programs have been shown to have significant impacts on youth outcomes such as reducing violent crime, increasing high school graduation, and boosting subsequent employment and wages. Much of this research is based on lotteries from oversubscribed programs. But what happens when jobs cannot be allocated using simple random assignment due to heterogeneous preferences of employers and youth participants? In this paper, the authors explore both a youth application and employer selection behavior to better understand youth labor market dynamics and document how the job matching process unfolds within a youth workforce development program.
Key Words
Youth, Workforce Development, Summer Jobs, Job Matching
Abstract
Summer Youth Employment Programs are known to have significant impacts on youth outcomes based on lotteries from oversubscribed programs. But most cities cannot use a lottery design due to heterogeneity across youth and jobs. How can programs achieve efficiency and equity under alternative assignment mechanisms? Using hiring platform data, we study youth application and employer selection behavior to explore these design challenges. We find large mismatches between the distribution of youth versus jobs leaving 10% to 25% of positions unfilled. Moreover, employers were nearly twice as likely to select white youth relative to their representation in the applicant pool. This disparity persisted when controlling for other demographics, the number and timing of applications, and job readiness. Our findings reveal that workforce development programs may perpetuate inequities in the absence of simple random assignment. Using a job matching algorithm, we show that placing just 30% of positions by lottery can improve both equity and efficiency.
Key Findings
Overall, our results indicate that despite having honorable goals of reducing inequality, youth workforce development programs that face heterogeneity on both sides of the job matching process are likely to result in job placements that perpetuate the inequities found in the labor market when random selection is not feasible. These disparities are eye-opening given that SYEP employer partners have signed a contract as part of a six-week developmental program where the City is paying the youth wages and youth applicants have little real-world experience upon which to differentiate themselves. However, our findings suggest that by using a combination of automated and direct program placements, cities can be more intentional about matching youth to jobs while maximizing both employer and youth participation. Instituting some kind of 70-30 rule with just under one-third of the program slots filled by a lottery run by the city and the remaining filled by the employer selection could be a feasible solution going forward.
However, while running lotteries within employers can help alleviate some of the disparity due to employer selection bias, because youth choose to apply to jobs based on location and/or a pre-existing relationship with the employer, there is still room for youth self-selection to perpetuate systemic inequality. Greater outreach and marketing of opportunities could help reduce the disparity in applicants across employers, creating a thicker market and improving the matching process in terms of both efficiency and equity. Additional research could help programs find actionable ways to nudge youth to apply better, guide employers to select youth more equitably, and reduce paperwork to better meet their intended goals of expanding opportunities for young people that level the playing field across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Rashad Cope of the City of Boston, Annie Duong of MLK Scholars, Mallory Jones of Youth Options Unlimited, Joe McLaughlin of the Boston Private Industry Council, and Jessica Rosario of Action for Boston Community Development for sharing their insights and data. We also thank the youth, parents, and employers who participated in our focus groups and interviews. Finally, we are grateful for the generous financial support of the William T. Grant Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the American Institutes for Research