New IZA DPs -- Hiring / Employment
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IZA Publications
Jan 25, 2026, 8:16:17 AMJan 25
to it...@umich.edu
Dear Italo Gutierrez,
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18290 - Ma/Mu/Xiao:
Who Gets Job Offers When Minimum Wages Rise? Evidence from China
DP 18292 - D'hert/El Haj/Baert:
Couldn’t Care Less? Understanding and Reducing the Hiring Penalty of Care-Related Career Breaks
DP 18310 - Fuchs/Heinz/Pinger/Thon:
How to Attract Talent? Field-Experimental Evidence on Emphasizing Flexibility and Career Opportunities in Job Advertisements
DP 18322 - Ahammer/Halla/Heckl/Winter-Ebmer:
Reintegrating Older Long-Term Unemployed Workers: The Impact of Temporary Job Guarantees
DP 18333 - Sparber:
Weighting the H-1B Lottery: Implications for Worker and Diversity and Employment Concentration
DP 18334 - Erten/Stiglitz/Verhoogen:
Employment Impacts of the CHIPS Act
DP 18342 - Barham/Cadena/Schechter:
Supported Work Leads to Lasting Labor Market Success Among TANF Recipients
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18290
Shuang Ma, Ren Mu, Han Xiao:
Who Gets Job Offers When Minimum Wages Rise? Evidence from China
Abstract:
Minimum wage increases are often accompanied by firms raising qualification requirements in job postings, but whether this skill upgrading reflects changes in who applies (composition effects) or changes in whom firms select from an unchanged applicant pool (selection effects) remains unclear. Using unique data from a large online job platform in China that links job postings, applications, and job offers, we compare firm hiring practices and applicant pools before versus after province-level minimum wage increases, treated versus control provinces, and minimum-wage versus higher-wage occupations. We find that firms raise educational requirements in postings by 3-4 percentage points and increase job offers to college-educated workers by 30\%, while offers to less-educated workers remain unchanged. At the same time, the application volumes and applicant characteristics remain unchanged. This pattern reveals that the shift in job offers occurs entirely through the selection eff ect, as the short-run labor supply response is limited even when firms actively attempt to reshape their applicant pools. Minimum wage increases thus redistribute employment opportunities among existing job seekers away from less educated workers.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18290.pdf
IZA DP No. 18292
Liam D'hert, Morien El Haj, Stijn Baert:
Couldn’t Care Less? Understanding and Reducing the Hiring Penalty of Care-Related Career Breaks
Abstract:
Surging demands for the care of dependent relatives increasingly pull workers out of paid employment. However, upon returning to the labour market, former caregivers often face hiring discrimination. Still, it remains unclear which caregiving engagements trigger this care penalty, what mechanisms sustain it, and how it can be countered. Conducting a factorial survey experiment with professional recruiters, this study compares hiring evaluations across multiple care- and non-care-related career breaks and identifies the mechanisms that anchor them. The findings show that the scarring effects of care-related breaks are less pronounced than those of long-term unemployment spells, but still substantial. Perceptions of skill loss, reduced commitment, and limited future availability fuel the care penalty. These negative perceptions are most evident following childcare-related breaks. Nonetheless, recruiters prove responsive to targeted counter-stereotypical cues: signalling flexibi lity or adaptability increases caregivers’ hireability, but not for the long-term unemployed.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18292.pdf
IZA DP No. 18310
Larissa Fuchs, Matthias Heinz, Pia Pinger, Max Thon:
How to Attract Talent? Field-Experimental Evidence on Emphasizing Flexibility and Career Opportunities in Job Advertisements
Abstract:
We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a leading technology firm to study how highlighting flexibility and career advancement in job advertisements causally affects the applicant pool. Highlighting career advancement increases the number of applications from men for entry-level positions and attracts additional applicants with strong qualifications and a good fit, which in turn leads to more interview invitations. By contrast, highlighting flexibility increases applications from both women and men at the entry level but provides limited evidence of attracting higher-quality or better-fit applicants. A complementary survey experiment among STEM students shows how job advertisements shape beliefs about the firm’s job characteristics and work environment. Overall, our results show that the amenities firms choose to highlight can powerfully influence both the size and characteristics of their applicant pool.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18310.pdf
IZA DP No. 18322
Alexander Ahammer, Martin Halla, Pia Heckl, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer:
Reintegrating Older Long-Term Unemployed Workers: The Impact of Temporary Job Guarantees
Abstract:
Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18322.pdf
IZA DP No. 18333
Chad Sparber:
Weighting the H-1B Lottery: Implications for Worker and Diversity and Employment Concentration
Abstract:
The H-1B program allows firms in the United States to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. Demand outstrips supply, and the government allocates status through a random lottery. In September 2025, The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a new lottery process that would weight applications favoring workers receiving higher wage offers. This short article demonstrates that a weighted lottery would increase the ethnic diversity of H-1B recipients. Implications for H-1B employment concentration are particularly sensitive to threshold cutoffs used to construct weights.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18333.pdf
IZA DP No. 18334
Bilge Erten, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Eric Verhoogen:
Employment Impacts of the CHIPS Act
Abstract:
The CHIPS and Science Act, enacted in August 2022, is a key element of the revival of U.S. industrial policy. We examine the short-term employment effects of the act. Drawing on quarterly industry-by-county data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), we implement two county-level difference-in-difference designs, the first comparing counties with pre-existing semiconductor facilities to other counties with high-tech industries and the second comparing counties with semiconductor fabrication facilities (which were targeted for the bulk of the CHIPS funding) to counties with non-fabrication semiconductor facilities. Using both approaches, we find robust, positive employment impacts in affected counties. The effects began at the time of the passage in the Senate of a precursor bill, in anticipation of the signing of the CHIPS Act. Our preferred estimates suggest an increase of 110 jobs per affected county in the first design and 180 jobs per affected county in the second design. Simple back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest national direct employment effects of approximately 15,000-16,000 jobs in the core semiconductor sector and indirect effects of 28,000-35,000 jobs in related sectors.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18334.pdf
IZA DP No. 18342
Tania Barham, Brian C. Cadena, Lauren Schechter:
Supported Work Leads to Lasting Labor Market Success Among TANF Recipients
Abstract:
This paper studies the effects of a supported work program that provides TANF recipients with a suite of services including a six-month subsidized internship with a local employer. We use rich administrative data and implement a stacked difference-in-differences design comparing program participants to observably similar TANF recipients to estimate effects on employment, earnings, and benefit receipt. Program enrollment led to an immediate increase in formal-sector employment and earnings, with limited post-program fadeout. The program increased employment by 10 percentage points (20 percent) and earnings by \$861 per quarter (48 percent) in the three years following program exit. Program participation also increased participants' total benefit receipt during the program, with modest decreases after program exit. The program is relatively cost-effective compared to other adult subsidized employment programs due to longer-than-average persistence of the employment and earnin gs gains.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18342.pdf
Please click here to change your subscription status.
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, contact public...@iza.org.
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18290 - Ma/Mu/Xiao:
Who Gets Job Offers When Minimum Wages Rise? Evidence from China
DP 18292 - D'hert/El Haj/Baert:
Couldn’t Care Less? Understanding and Reducing the Hiring Penalty of Care-Related Career Breaks
DP 18310 - Fuchs/Heinz/Pinger/Thon:
How to Attract Talent? Field-Experimental Evidence on Emphasizing Flexibility and Career Opportunities in Job Advertisements
DP 18322 - Ahammer/Halla/Heckl/Winter-Ebmer:
Reintegrating Older Long-Term Unemployed Workers: The Impact of Temporary Job Guarantees
DP 18333 - Sparber:
Weighting the H-1B Lottery: Implications for Worker and Diversity and Employment Concentration
DP 18334 - Erten/Stiglitz/Verhoogen:
Employment Impacts of the CHIPS Act
DP 18342 - Barham/Cadena/Schechter:
Supported Work Leads to Lasting Labor Market Success Among TANF Recipients
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18290
Shuang Ma, Ren Mu, Han Xiao:
Who Gets Job Offers When Minimum Wages Rise? Evidence from China
Abstract:
Minimum wage increases are often accompanied by firms raising qualification requirements in job postings, but whether this skill upgrading reflects changes in who applies (composition effects) or changes in whom firms select from an unchanged applicant pool (selection effects) remains unclear. Using unique data from a large online job platform in China that links job postings, applications, and job offers, we compare firm hiring practices and applicant pools before versus after province-level minimum wage increases, treated versus control provinces, and minimum-wage versus higher-wage occupations. We find that firms raise educational requirements in postings by 3-4 percentage points and increase job offers to college-educated workers by 30\%, while offers to less-educated workers remain unchanged. At the same time, the application volumes and applicant characteristics remain unchanged. This pattern reveals that the shift in job offers occurs entirely through the selection eff ect, as the short-run labor supply response is limited even when firms actively attempt to reshape their applicant pools. Minimum wage increases thus redistribute employment opportunities among existing job seekers away from less educated workers.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18290.pdf
IZA DP No. 18292
Liam D'hert, Morien El Haj, Stijn Baert:
Couldn’t Care Less? Understanding and Reducing the Hiring Penalty of Care-Related Career Breaks
Abstract:
Surging demands for the care of dependent relatives increasingly pull workers out of paid employment. However, upon returning to the labour market, former caregivers often face hiring discrimination. Still, it remains unclear which caregiving engagements trigger this care penalty, what mechanisms sustain it, and how it can be countered. Conducting a factorial survey experiment with professional recruiters, this study compares hiring evaluations across multiple care- and non-care-related career breaks and identifies the mechanisms that anchor them. The findings show that the scarring effects of care-related breaks are less pronounced than those of long-term unemployment spells, but still substantial. Perceptions of skill loss, reduced commitment, and limited future availability fuel the care penalty. These negative perceptions are most evident following childcare-related breaks. Nonetheless, recruiters prove responsive to targeted counter-stereotypical cues: signalling flexibi lity or adaptability increases caregivers’ hireability, but not for the long-term unemployed.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18292.pdf
IZA DP No. 18310
Larissa Fuchs, Matthias Heinz, Pia Pinger, Max Thon:
How to Attract Talent? Field-Experimental Evidence on Emphasizing Flexibility and Career Opportunities in Job Advertisements
Abstract:
We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a leading technology firm to study how highlighting flexibility and career advancement in job advertisements causally affects the applicant pool. Highlighting career advancement increases the number of applications from men for entry-level positions and attracts additional applicants with strong qualifications and a good fit, which in turn leads to more interview invitations. By contrast, highlighting flexibility increases applications from both women and men at the entry level but provides limited evidence of attracting higher-quality or better-fit applicants. A complementary survey experiment among STEM students shows how job advertisements shape beliefs about the firm’s job characteristics and work environment. Overall, our results show that the amenities firms choose to highlight can powerfully influence both the size and characteristics of their applicant pool.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18310.pdf
IZA DP No. 18322
Alexander Ahammer, Martin Halla, Pia Heckl, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer:
Reintegrating Older Long-Term Unemployed Workers: The Impact of Temporary Job Guarantees
Abstract:
Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18322.pdf
IZA DP No. 18333
Chad Sparber:
Weighting the H-1B Lottery: Implications for Worker and Diversity and Employment Concentration
Abstract:
The H-1B program allows firms in the United States to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. Demand outstrips supply, and the government allocates status through a random lottery. In September 2025, The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a new lottery process that would weight applications favoring workers receiving higher wage offers. This short article demonstrates that a weighted lottery would increase the ethnic diversity of H-1B recipients. Implications for H-1B employment concentration are particularly sensitive to threshold cutoffs used to construct weights.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18333.pdf
IZA DP No. 18334
Bilge Erten, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Eric Verhoogen:
Employment Impacts of the CHIPS Act
Abstract:
The CHIPS and Science Act, enacted in August 2022, is a key element of the revival of U.S. industrial policy. We examine the short-term employment effects of the act. Drawing on quarterly industry-by-county data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), we implement two county-level difference-in-difference designs, the first comparing counties with pre-existing semiconductor facilities to other counties with high-tech industries and the second comparing counties with semiconductor fabrication facilities (which were targeted for the bulk of the CHIPS funding) to counties with non-fabrication semiconductor facilities. Using both approaches, we find robust, positive employment impacts in affected counties. The effects began at the time of the passage in the Senate of a precursor bill, in anticipation of the signing of the CHIPS Act. Our preferred estimates suggest an increase of 110 jobs per affected county in the first design and 180 jobs per affected county in the second design. Simple back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest national direct employment effects of approximately 15,000-16,000 jobs in the core semiconductor sector and indirect effects of 28,000-35,000 jobs in related sectors.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18334.pdf
IZA DP No. 18342
Tania Barham, Brian C. Cadena, Lauren Schechter:
Supported Work Leads to Lasting Labor Market Success Among TANF Recipients
Abstract:
This paper studies the effects of a supported work program that provides TANF recipients with a suite of services including a six-month subsidized internship with a local employer. We use rich administrative data and implement a stacked difference-in-differences design comparing program participants to observably similar TANF recipients to estimate effects on employment, earnings, and benefit receipt. Program enrollment led to an immediate increase in formal-sector employment and earnings, with limited post-program fadeout. The program increased employment by 10 percentage points (20 percent) and earnings by \$861 per quarter (48 percent) in the three years following program exit. Program participation also increased participants' total benefit receipt during the program, with modest decreases after program exit. The program is relatively cost-effective compared to other adult subsidized employment programs due to longer-than-average persistence of the employment and earnin gs gains.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18342.pdf
Please click here to change your subscription status.
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, contact public...@iza.org.
IZA Publications
Jan 25, 2026, 8:18:39 AMJan 25
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