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? During the summer of 2022, we obtained daily data snapshots from the hiring platform used by the City of Boston to match youth to summer jobs. Using this novel data set, we explore both 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. We find that roughly one-third of youth fail to complete the application process and that Hispanics are under-represented among the applicant pool. For youth completing at least one valid job application, employers were nearly twice as likely to select white youth relative to the percentage of whites in the overall pool of applicants. This disparity persisted even when controlling for other demographics, number and timing of applications submitted, and previous participation in the program. Implementing a job matching algorithm helped to eliminate these disparities between youth who were selected compared to the applicant population. Our results indicate that despite having honorable goals of reducing inequality, 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. In the absence of a simple random selection mechanism, instituting some kind of 50-50 rule with half of the program slots filled by employer selection and the remaining half filled by a lottery run by the City could be a feasible solution to improve both equity and efficiency.

• The hiring platforms used by SYEP intermediaries were not designed to process high volumes of applications, cross-check matches for duplicate placements, and provide a user-friendly experience for youth. As a result, the post-COVID selection and hiring process across the Boston summer jobs ecosystem has become inefficient.

• Despite having 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

• Employers tend to select the same youth for multiple positions while other youth are not selected for any positions. These selections often show disparities by race and ethnicity. Fortunately, the pilot job matching algorithm along with the OYEO “We Hire” event was able to reduce these disparities.
• Overall, it appears that youth applicant behaviors are not maximizing the probability of being selected by an employer. The low completion rate of the application process suggests significant barriers to participation.
• Because youth choose to apply to jobs based on location and/or a pre-existing relationship with the employer, there is room for youth self-selection to perpetuate systemic inequality.

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

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