POVERTY & EQUITY NOTES AUGUST 2020 · NUMBER 32 Supporting Job Search for Mauritian Youth with Little Education Jorge Luis Castaneda, Isis Gaddis, Marco Ranzani, and Joana Sousa Lourenço Boosting shared prosperity also means including disadvantaged groups in the labor market. While many factors can hinder labor force participation, behavioral factors have emerged as key barriers in the case of Mauritian youth with little education. This Note describes the results of an intervention that delivered training on job search, goal setting, and planning skills to a group of young job-seekers with low educational attainment in Mauritius. While the intervention had to be interrupted due to the COVID-19 outbreak, preliminary results show encouraging positive impacts for youth employability and job search behaviors, and point to useful lessons. Mauritius has one of the strongest economies in This Note illustrates the design and Africa. Over recent decades, it has achieved an implementation of a behavioral intervention and extraordinary structural transformation, steady discusses key findings form the first phase of economic growth, and poverty reduction, but implementation. 1 The World Bank designed and economic success has recently fallen short of began implementing a behavioral intervention to expectations in terms of both growth and shared support Mauritian youth with little education, in prosperity. In addition, Mauritius’ population is aging cooperation with the Mauritius Employment Services rapidly, and the labor force is shrinking. Mauritius will Division of the Ministry of Labour, Human Resources therefore need to pursue a new growth model to Development, and Training. reignite productivity growth and employ more people to make them less dependent on fiscal redistribution. Intervention Design Mauritian youth show significantly lower than The intervention provided job-seekers with in- average labor force participation rates. Out of person training, and a 20-minute phone call about 351,000 youth ages 16–35, 21 percent are not “boost” 4 to 5 weeks after the training. The in education, employment, or training (NEET) and training focused on building effective job search almost 70 percent of NEET youth are women. About skills, such as goal setting and planning, while the 39 percent of NEET youth have at best completed boost focused on motivation and mentoring. The primary education, and this typically accompanies decision to include the phone-call “boost” responded poor living standards. About 74 percent of NEET to the suspension of the intervention due to the youth with low levels of education are living in COVID-19 lockdown. households in the bottom 40 percent, and about 30 percent are living in poor households. Disengaged Training in job search skills: The training included 3 youth miss the opportunity to develop at an age that main components: (a) the job search journey, is crucial for future social and economic outcomes, providing simplified templates of reference letters and are exposed to economic vulnerability, social and résumés that were easy to navigate; (b) training marginalization, and violence. to promote goal setting and the use of planning tools (Figure 1); (c) a job search primer, in the form of an 1 The full study is available for download at http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/582261592536259683/. information leaflet providing data on local labor market conditions, resources, and tips. Implementation Job search journey: The diagnostic analysis found The intervention was implemented in 8 of the 14 that many youth lacked job application experience, employment offices located in 7 of 10 Mauritian and were uncertain about documentation, steps, districts. Adequate space and infrastructure for the channels, and duration of the process of looking for training were the main criteria for site selection. employment. Thus, the training aimed at guiding Youth were identified through a registry of job- youth through the process and supporting them in seekers ages 16–35 with low educational attainment. setting realistic expectations and persevering. The A third-party survey firm invited them to participate initial activity described the job search journey, through phone calls and SMSs. After confirming their including main steps, requirements, potential eligibility, participants selected their preferred date difficulties, and possible outcomes. The presentation and time to attend the training at a location near then focused on 2 main documents: the reference their residence. Each received an SMS reminder 1 day letters and the CV. The activity sought to motivate prior to their session.2 Youth visited the specified and guide participants to fill out simplified templates venue on the selected day and completed the for these documents (available in the booklet) to use baseline survey, before being randomly assigned to when applying for jobs. a control arm (no training and no boost) or a treatment arm (training and boost). Random Training in goal setting and planning: Fieldwork assignment was conducted within each data before the training identified the lack of soft skills key collection session to avoid self-selection bias and for effective job search, namely goal setting and ensure balance between treatment and control arms. planning, as well as lack of achievable and realistic aspirations. The training included several main Intervention implementation started on March 9, components, leveraging insights from behavioral 2020. The baseline survey and training were planned science: simplification, implementation intentions, to last 18 calendar days and to finish on March 27, commitment devices, and the concept of “making it and the end line survey was scheduled for early May. social” (instead of individual). Job-seekers were However, the COVID-19 outbreak forced suspension invited to set specific weekly job search goals in of field activities only 10 days after the start, so only terms of number of hours spent searching, 306 individuals (147 treated) participated in the identifying opportunities, and sending applications. training instead of the planned 1,040 (520 per arm). They also created weekly job search plans. Training provided a weekly planning tool, a template The World Bank team recruited and trained 5 structuring each activity into “what, when, where, and facilitators with degrees in social work or psychology how”, and participants received a checklist on job and previous professional experience with the target search channels. Job-seekers signed a commitment population to deliver the training and the boost. The statement on their weekly goals and plan, and were facilitators (2 per session) delivered the training in 2- asked to write down the name of someone with hour session to groups of up to 12 job-seekers. The whom they would share the plan. The goal setting, phone boost took place 4 to 5 weeks after training. planning, and commitments participants established during week 1 were completed during the training sessions with guidance from facilitators, and the templates they filled out during weeks 2–4 were included in the workbook. 2 Individuals were considered eligible if they were NEET as well as if they had done only a small amount of paid work (up to six hours) in the seven days prior to the interview. August 2020 · Number 32 2 several factors, including labor demand, labor supply, Results 3 and matching. Gender differences: While more women than men We aggregated outcomes into 3 main groups: job participated in the intervention, some evidence search and employability, socioemotional skills, and implies that the intervention was more effective in labor market outcomes (Table 1). increasing job search efforts for young men. For “asking for a referral” or “requesting a Job search and employability: The training had recommendation letter”, the intervention was more highly positive impacts on compliance with the likely to succeed for men than for women (36 specific job search strategies covered during the percentage points and 13 percentage points, training activities: preparing, revising, or submitting a respectively). There are no significant differences by CV (33 percentage points); asking for a referral or gender for the other 2 job search strategies, which requesting a recommendation letter (21 percentage may partly be due to lack of statistical power given points); and developing a job search plan (13 the smaller than anticipated sample size. percentage points). Nonetheless, these findings, as well as focus group discussions, indicate that female labor force Socioemotional skills. The intervention did not participation is constrained by factors, such as lack of affect the socioemotional skills covered (columns 5- childcare services and traditional gender norms, not 7). These null effects are not surprising considering addressed by the intervention. that soft skills training focused on goal setting and planning. Consistently, significant differences were found in job search intensity and reference seeking, Lessons in line with previous research. 4 Additionally, the intervention included guidance and information about the Mauritian labor market (job search training The positive results in the midst of an and primer). While there was no significant difference unprecedent economic crisis indicate the between the control and treatment groups on job potential of behaviorally-informed interventions search expectations (the number of months to find a for vulnerable populations. Well-designed, simple, job), interpretation is made difficult by the COVID-19 and low-cost training and mentoring calls can labor market-related disruptions. 5 motivate young jobseekers with low education to follow through on job search tasks. However, the Labor market outcomes: The intervention did not intervention revealed structural factors that limit improve the employment of participants (column 8). vocational and skills training. The lack of This is not surprising for at least 2 reasons. First, the intrahousehold and family support for women, or time between the intervention and the end line data literacy gaps in English or French, are 2 examples of collection—the “exposure time” —was a short 4 to 5 entry barriers to the labor market for youth. Cost- weeks. Second, COVID-19 led to a sudden decline in effective actions should complement support economic activity and labor demand worldwide as services and formal training, allowing inactive youth well as restrictions on the movements of people. to at least have a chance at securing work. Thus, it would have been difficult to observe employment effects, which are a combination of 3 The results discussed in this section cover the treatment-on-the-treated effect, which captures the impact of the actual participation in the training and boost activities on the outcomes, after controlling for those who did not take part in the boost training. 4 For example, Abel, Simon Martin, Rulof Petrus Burger, and Patrizio Piraino. 2017. “The Value of Reference Letters.” Policy Research Working Paper 8266, World Bank, Washington, DC. Briscese, Guglielmo, and Cameron Tan. 2018. “Applying Behavioural Insights to Labour Markets: How Behavioural Insights Can Improve Employment Policies and Programmes.” Behavioural Insights Team, London. 5 Additional reasons for not detecting any statistically significant effects can be found in the full version of the study available at http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/582261592536259683/. August 2020 · Number 32 3 Figure 1. Components of the Job-Seeker’s Workbook, Training, and Primer Table 1. Intervention Impacts on Selected Outcomes: Treatment on the Treated (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) Prepared or Requested Worked on Looked Growth Grit Expectations Worked posted CV references search plan for work mindset Training and 0.332*** 0.208*** 0.130** 0.123 −0.045 0.075 −0.056 -0.044 boost (0.096) (0.058) (0.091) (0.055) (0.041) (0.041) (0.067) (0.065) -0.154 -0.154 -0.058 -0.047 0.006 0.13 −0.246 0.001 No boost (0.133) (0.124) (0.129) (0.106) (0.177) (0.091) (0.246) (0.192) Constant 0.454*** 0.130 -0.186* 0.399* 4.011*** 0.733** 4.569*** 0.099 (0.120) (0.234) (0.094) (0.196) (0.449) (0.282) (0.219) (0.235) N 280 280 280 280 280 280 280 280 Note: Estimates from an ordinary least squares regression, including individual sociodemographic controls (female, age, marital status as single, and educational attainment), and fixed effects for the day of random assignment. Standard errors are clustered at the EIC level. Dependent variables 1–4, 6 and 8 are defined as dichotomous variables set equal to 1 if respondent reported the stated activity at the end line survey, and dependent variables 5 and 7 are the averages of 2 and 6 respective items, scored on a Likert agreeableness scale ranging from 1 to 5. Significance level: * = 10 percent, ** = 5 percent, *** = 1 percent. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Jorge Luis Castaneda, Economist Isis Gaddis, Senior Economist Marco Ranzani, Economist Joana Sousa Lourenço, Social Scientist This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on Poverty-related topics. The views expressed in the notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank, its board or its member countries. Copies of this notes series are available on www.worldbank.org/poverty August 2020 · Number 32 4