Labour Market Efficiency in the North West (LME)
Project Overview
In this project we investigate the efficiency of labour markets in the North West regional economy by examining the matching of workers and employers. This will require an investigation of the duration of worker search (e.g. the duration of unemployment) and the duration of employer search (i.e. vacancy duration). The techniques of duration modelling will be used, and these techniques may be developed to simultaneously model employer and worker search. Previous research has focused on each side of the labour market separately. Our results will have implications for the conduct of policy with respect to the employment services, training programmes and special employment measures, such as the New Deal. Our main focus will be on the youth labour market, and in particular young people aged 16-20, because computerised employer, worker and vacancy records exist at each Careers Service in the region. We have previously obtained and examined this data for the Lancashire sub-region for the period 1988-92, and so we have acquired considerable expertise in this area. Extending this work will require prior agreement of Careers Services and then involve substantial data collection from a number of independent services that hold data in different ways. The analysis of this data will require a considerable increase in computing power.
Objectives
- Are labour markets best described by stock-stock matching or by stock-flow matching and what are the implications for policy on the provision of guidance and counselling and training?
- What are the determinants of employer and worker search and what implications are raised for the conduct of employment and guidance agencies?
- Is non-matching between workers and employers due to a decline in the contact rate between the two or due to a decline in the matching probability? What are the implications for the causes of youth unemployment?
- What are the implications of our findings for changes in the efficiency of the operation of youth labour markets in the North West?