Working Paper: NBER ID: w22672
Authors: Ioana Marinescu; Roland Rathelot
Abstract: Could we significantly reduce U.S. unemployment by helping job seekers move closer to jobs? Using data from the leading employment board CareerBuilder.com, we show that, indeed, workers dislike applying to distant jobs: job seekers are 35% less likely to apply to a job 10 miles away from their ZIP code of residence. However, because job seekers are close enough to vacancies on average, this distaste for distance is fairly inconsequential: our search and matching model predicts that relocating job seekers to minimize unemployment would decrease unemployment by only 5.3%. Geographic mismatch is thus a minor driver of aggregate unemployment.
Keywords: Mismatch Unemployment; Geographic Mismatch; Job Search; Labor Market
JEL Codes: E24; J21; J61; J62; J64
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Relocating job seekers to minimize unemployment (J68) | Unemployment rate (J64) |
| Geographic mismatch (J69) | Aggregate unemployment levels (J64) |
| Geographic mismatch index sensitivity (R23) | Geographic units used (R14) |
| Distance (R12) | Likelihood of application (C52) |