How students search for vacation employment.
IntroductionThe objectives of this paper are to consider the differing job search methods used by university students seeking summer vacation employment and to examine their intensity of use and relative effectiveness. Since the initial papers by Stigler[1] and[2] the literature relating to job search and information in labour markets has developed in differing directions as discussed in Mortensen[3]. The studies by Rees[4], Reid[5] and McGregor[6] examined and classified the characteristics of labour market information, while Pissarides[7] and Jones[8] have evaluated the intensity of use and effectiveness, of differing search methods. However, despite the opening sentence of Stigler[2] stating that "The young person entering the labour market for the first time has an immense number of employers, scarce as they may seem on the first day", only limited work has been reported on the methods adopted by young people in the job search process, notable exceptions being Stephenson[9] and Holzer[10-11].
These studies examined how young people sought permanent employment, but a significant number of young people will at specific times in the year seek employment which has a limited time horizon, employment where it is understood by both the employer and employee that the termination of the job is fixed. In seeking such employment students are in competition with those who are unemployed, those seeking a second job and married women returnees for such employment which increasingly is an integral part of student life and contributes to the growth in temporary employment in Britain reported on by Casey[12] and Dale and Barnford[13] whilst not being a consequence of it.
The population being considered are special in that they are young, they are seeking temporary employment, despite their education they often lack formal job training and with their limited employment horizons they are normally not attractive trainees. Despite, or because of these characteristics, a high percentage of students find employment each summer. Normally, the employment sought and obtained by students will have the characteristics Doeringer and Prior[14], attributed to the secondary labour market, namely "...low wages, poor fringe benefits and poor working conditions, while the workers themselves (students) have inadequate skills for the work undertaken" (p. 165).
This paper is based on questionnaires, completed during the registration period, by students entering their final year on a stratified sample of twenty degree courses at Coventry University with 30 per cent of the sample being drawn from engineering and technology courses, 30 per cent from applied science courses and the remaining 40 per cent from the business and social science disciplines.
From Table I we see that 79 per cent of the 1,918 students surveyed searched for vacation employment. Of these students, 83 per cent desired to work full-time, 46 per cent were prepared to work part-time and 30 per cent of the respondents indicated they had searched for both full and part-time employment.
Table I. Employment search decision by sex Percentage of students who Male Female Sought employment in vacation periods 79 79 Did not seek employment in vacation periods 17 18 Not applicable, already in employment 3 2
Background
When permanent employment is being sought, any job offer will contain two elements: one which is known to both parties, the wage offer and one which is unknown to either party, the period of employment. For students and their potential employers, the latter element is time constrained, with, in normal circumstances, the student wishing to enter the labour market in late June/early July and willing to work for a maximum period of three months. The importance of the workers' reservation wage is recognized as significant when search theory is applied to the labour market, however for students seeking summer vacation employment the key consideration will often be the total monetary sum which can be earned over the period, with given leisure preference. Students entering the labour market will have a concept of their target income (which we have anecdotally found to be based on discussion with their cohort members at their own and other Universities) and this will influence the employment sought and the way the search process is undertaken. For example, low wage employment with the opportunity of overtime may be preferred to higher paid employment with no overtime, if the former enables a target income figure to be achieved. When the target income is high, with a low value placed on leisure, it is assumed that full-time employment will be sought. However, when a higher value is placed on leisure in parallel with a lower target income the strategy may be to seek part-time employment which will normally offer a lower hourly wage. Our survey found that students typically worked in the lower paid part of the job spectrum with over half of the students finding employment in either clerical or unskilled manual work. Also, almost half of the full-time workers and over half of the part-time workers found employment in either Hotels/Catering or retail distribution, these are industries which paid the lowest and third lowest average full-time weekly wage respectively, the exact figures being 87 per cent and 93 per cent of the mean earnings for full-time work for the sample.
However, it should be noted that for some students the target income might be a secondary consideration, with vacation employment being regarded as a means to improve their curriculum vitae which represents an investment to increase the estimated value of their future earnings stream.
While similarities will exist within families of jobs, each job is unique and the acquisition of full knowledge of alternative opportunities can be a costly process. Student job seekers are assumed to have a degree of knowledge of the available opportunities in the job market, based on their own experience, the experience of other students to whom they have talked and information obtained from friends and family, but they lack information relating to all alternatives. What will be known is that different search methods will be required for different employers and the jobs they have on offer. Further, and of particular significance to students, given the time constraint on their anticipated employment, there exist different response times to job applications dependent on the method of search used. The time constraint on the potential work period may influence the actual choice of job sought and cause students to focus their job search in a way that those seeking permanent employment might not consider appropriate. Each week the student is not in employment an income loss will be incurred which cannot normally be recovered by extending the employment period beyond the date of return to study. The opportunity cost of extending the search process into the vacation by one week would require, ceteris paribus, an eight per cent increase over the previous wage offer to compensate for the lost earnings. This consideration may encourage the student to begin the search process well before the date employment is desired, a strategy not without difficulties and one that may influence the choice of search methods. Further, a considerable proportion of students live away from their parental home, to which they return over the vacation for economic reasons, consequently the job search process may have to be either conducted from a distance and/or begin several months prior to the anticipated employment start. Under these circumstances the student may accept the first job offer received in preference to seeking the best job as the additional search costs, represented by the loss in earnings, will be considerable.
Search methods
The type of employment sought will partially pre-determine the character of the search process which is a multi-dimensional activity involving alternative methods and techniques. The alternative methods may be initially classified into formal and informal groupings, the significant difference being the quantity and quality of information available to the job seeker. Formal methods normally provide the job seeker with limited information relating to the employment environment with the acquisition of further information usually requiring an interrogation of informal networks and engagement in intensive search. There is a consensus within the literature regarding a further sub-division of the formal/informal groupings which are usually based on the framework established by Rees and Schultz[15] although recently Ports[16] has shown the relative significance of the differing search methods has changed over time.
In the survey respondents were asked to indicate by a "tick in a box" questionnaire which of the alternative methods of job search they had used in seeking employment. It is acknowledged there are difficulties in using this technique. First there is the question of the truthfulness of the responses and whether all the methods being used were reported or only those methods which resulted in employment. Secondly, when several methods are identified, the order in which the methods were used is not known.
Table II reports on the methods used by students; when two or more methods were reported each occurrence has been recorded. Overall, slightly more students reported using informal search methods, 1,481, than formal methods, 1351. Among the formal methods a third of the respondents referred to advertisements in their job search process and a quarter sought employment through private employment agencies.
Table II. Methods of search used by students seeking vacation employment distribution (n = 1515) Method Number Per cent Formal Job Centre 282 18.6 Employment agency 373 24.6 Advertisement 494 32.6 Other 202 13.3 Informal Former employers 701 46.3 Family and friends 551 36.4 Direct approaches 229 15.1
A rather smaller percentage of students took advantage of the network of government sponsored Job Centres. Studies by Jones[8] and Bosworth et al.[17] found young people tended to make greater use of the employment service Job Centres than other age groups, Bosworth suggesting, on the basis of Labour Force Survey data, that over 50 per cent of young people used the Centres. However, among the student job seekers under twenty per cent adopted this method and then usually in conjunction with other methods. The differences between the results reported here and those in earlier studies may reflect the characteristics of the job seekers, for the non-student there may be other incentives to use the Job Centres as registration may be a pre-requisite for social security benefits which were not payable to students.
Informal methods were used wholly, or partially, as a means of job search by nearly all the students. The use of such methods is both rational and logical as they offered two advantages: first they are relatively low cost in time and money, second this form of approach would bring a quick response and allow the search process to be either terminated or re-directed towards other employers.
Among the informal methods direct approaches, either to previous employers or cold calling new ones, were of considerable importance and this accords with the earlier work by Rees and Schultz[15] and the recent study by Bortnick and Ports[18] who reported "checking with employers directly was the most common method of job search". These studies drew on research in the United States and the importance American job seekers give to direct approaches was not found in an earlier British study, that of Reid[5].
The findings reported here may differ from those of Reid due to the character of the sample and the work sought. This study concerned job seekers who were redundant engineering workers, seeking new permanent employment, while the study reported here relates to potential temporary workers seeking to enter or re-enter the labour market for a short period and who, as a first move, return to former employers to investigate the possibility of obtaining further employment. The job seeker using this method will already have extensive information relating to the employment sought based on their own previous experience.
The student job seekers had a choice of the type of employment sought, either full or part-time and a comparison of the relative likelihood of success of the job search methods for these two forms of employment is presented in Table III.
The figures in Table III show the percentage of students who successfully gained employment, using one, or more, of the methods identified. There were differences between full and part-time job seekers in the degree of success attributed to each method and such differences may reflect the greater intensity of search, on average part-time job seekers used two methods while full-time job seekers used 1.75.
Table III. The methods of search used by students by type of job searched for Method Percentage obtaining employment Formal Full-time (n = 963) Part-time (n = 481) Job Centre 13.8 17.3 Employment agencies 24.7 23.5 Advertisement 25.3 35.1 Other 14.3 10.8 Informal Former employer 48.0 58.6 Family and friends 33.5 40.1 Direct approaches 14.6 18.3
Whether the different methods were being used simultaneously or sequentially is not known and hence it is not possible to identify which methods lead directly to employment. However, the use of more than one method is taken as a proxy for the intensity of the search undertaken and the results indicate there were increasing returns to scale in the job search process.
The results reported in Table IV indicate 45 per cent of the students had cause to use a minimum of at least two different job search methods prior to obtaining employment. This latter figure is lower than those reported in the Labour Force Surveys for young people under the age of 25 years. The reasons are not entirely clear although the more limited intensity of search may reflect a greater degree of flexibility, with respect to the work and/or rewards, by students seeking employment for a restricted period only. Further, it should be noted 12 per cent of student job seekers failed to obtain employment.
Table IV. Number of search methods used by those students who obtained employment Number of Percentage of students Success rate (%) methods used 1 55.1 80.41 2 19.0 84.97 3 13.7 87.38 4 7.6 94.74 5 3.5 96.15 6 0.8 97.67 7 0.27 100.00
Empirical specification
The models developed were used to identify the effectiveness of the job search techniques adopted and take the form whereby the value of the dependent variable is limited to being in one of two states (0 or 1) where either the student obtained employment during the summer vacation (denoted by a "1") or the student did not obtain employment during the summer vacation (denoted by a "0").
The independent variables in this model are:
Control variables
* The sex of the student (1 representing female and 0 representing male).
* Whether the student was over 21 or not (1 representing a student aged over 21 and 0 representing a student aged under 21).
* Whether the student received a full maintenance grant or not (1 representing a student in possession of a full grant and 0 representing a student in possession of a partial grant or no grant).
* Whether the student had dependants or not (1 representing a student with no dependants and 0 representing a student with dependants).
Job search technique variables
* Whether the student searched for a job outside their local area or Coventry (1 representing a student who did search outside Coventry or their home area).
* Whether the student asked a previous employer for a job (1 representing a student who did ask a previous employer).
* Whether the student used a direct approach (1 representing a student who did use a direct approach of job search).
* Whether the student used a Job Centre (1 representing a student who did use a Job Centre).
* Whether the student used a private employment agency (1 representing a student who did use a private employment agency).
* Whether the student asked friends or family if they knew of any vacancies (1 representing a student who did ask friends or family if they knew of any vacancies).
* Whether the student responded to advertisements in newspapers or journals (1 representing a student who did respond to advertisements in newspapers).
Our a priori beliefs give the following expectations for the effects of the control variables on the probability of obtaining a job during the summer vacation.
* A female student would be less likely to obtain a job, on the grounds of possible discrimination, suggesting a negative effect on the probability of obtaining employment.
* A mature student is more likely to obtain a job, on the grounds of being more likely to have prior labour market experience, suggesting a positive effect on the probability of obtaining employment.
* A student on a full maintenance grant is less likely to seek employment, as he or she may be in less need of one to repay debts, suggesting a negative effect on the probability of obtaining employment.
* Whether a student has young dependants or not has an ambiguous effect on the probability of seeking employment, that they may be in need of money suggests a positive coefficient, but a negative coefficient is suggested as they may not be able to arrange child care during the school vacation period which comprises a large part of the University vacation period.
Empirical results
Students seeking employment over the summer vacation have a degree of choice not only of the type of work sought but also of the hours to be worked. For many the desire is for full-time employment, for others the choice is to seek a part-time job. A minority, 30 per cent, sought both full and part-time work, whether this decision arose from choice or circumstances is not known. While 1,515 students sought employment, after removing the questionnaires of those who did not respond to one or more of the questions under analysis the usable database consisted of 1,405 returns and these have been sub-divided into three constituent groups based on the type of employment being searched for. The analysis, which is given in Table V, looked at each of these three groups:
(1) the 746 students seeking full-time employment only;
(2) the 226 students seeking part-time employment only;
(3) the 433 students seeking either full-time or part-time employment.
Note that the marginal effects (i.e. the effect on the dependent variable of a one unit increase in an independent variable) for a Logit regression are not the reported coefficients as they would be for an Ordinary Least Squares Regression and are also not constant for all values of the independent variables. In order to obtain the marginal effects, we must first differentiate the functional form with respect to the independent variables (the x's) and then estimate for suitable values of the independent variables such as the mean values of the independent variables.
The functional form here is
y = [e.sup.[Beta][prime]x]/1 + [e.sup.[Beta][prime]x]
which when differentiated with respect to x gives
[Delta]y/[Delta]x = [Beta] x [e.sup.[Beta][prime]x]/1 + [e.sup.[Beta][prime]x] x 1/1 + [e.sup.[Beta][prime]x].
This final equation is then estimated at the mean values of the independent variables for each coefficient.
(1) Students seeking full-time employment only. Full-time employment was the choice of 84 per cent of the respondents, with 53 per cent of the usable sample seeking only this type of employment. This model was 94.5 per cent accurate in correctly predicting whether or not students obtained a full-time job and is statistically significant at the 99.99 per cent level.
The statistically significant findings were that:
* the use of responding to newspaper advertisements as a method of job search by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 4.6 per cent;
[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE V OMITTED]
* the use of a Job Centre by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 3.2 per cent;
* none of the other variables proved to be statistically significant.
(2) Students seeking part-time employment only. Sixteen per cent of the students choose to seek only part-time work the option which offered the opportunity of greater leisure during their vacation. This percentage was lower than anticipated, given many students now combine part-time employment with their studies during term-time, though this may be a reflection of the desire to maximize earnings via full-time employment during the summer period. For students who sought only part-time work the results gave a model which was 88.5 per cent accurate in correctly predicting whether or not a part-time job was obtained and is statistically significant at the 99.93 per cent level.
The statistically significant findings were that:
* the use of responding to newspaper advertisements as a method of job search by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by seven per cent;
* the use of a Job Centre by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 9.6 per cent;
* the use of a direct means of employment search itself reduces the probability of gaining employment by 12.6 per cent. This may be due to a gender and dependent effect as this technique was used by over 23 per cent of males with dependants as opposed to 15 per cent of the total sample who sought employment, 9.5 per cent of all males who sought employment and 8.5 per cent of females with dependants who sought employment.
* the use of a private employment agency by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 9.7 per cent. This latter finding may reflect the character of the temporary, and often part-time, vacancies these agencies are seeking to fill.
(3) Students seeking either full-time or part-time employment. The difficulty, which has been acknowledged above, with this subgroup is that it is unknown which form of employment was initially sought or whether the search for both forms was undertaken simultaneously or sequentially using the same methods with the first satisfactory offer being accepted. On this occasion the model proved to be the least satisfactory, being only 78.5 per cent accurate in correctly predicting whether or not students obtained employment, either full or part-time and is statistically significant at the 99.99 per cent level.
The statistically significant findings were that:
* the use of a direct approach of job search by itself reduces the students probability of getting a job by 12 per cent which may be due to the reasons given above;
* the use of responding to newspaper advertisements as a method of job search by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 18 per cent;
* the use of a Job Centre by itself increased the probability of gaining employment by 12 per cent;
* males did have a 7.7 per cent higher probability of obtaining employment than female students;
* students with dependants have a 13.5 per cent lower probability of obtaining employment than students without dependants.
Summary of empirical results
The a priori beliefs could not be tested fully as the control variables were not all significant at the 90 per cent level in any of the models which we suspect may be due either to problems with the design of our questionnaire (which was designed to be completed on a voluntary basis in unsupervised conditions) or with employers treating students as an homogeneous factor resource. Our statistically significant findings are that:
* a female student was less likely to obtain a job when she sought part-time and/or full-time work;
* a student with dependants is more likely to get work if he or she searches solely for part-time or full-time work rather than searching for both;
* two of the statistically significant search techniques were common to all of the models and proved to be the most successful. These were going to the Job Centre and responding to newspaper advertisements.
Conclusions
The objectives of this paper were to consider the relative effectiveness and the intensity of use, of differing search methods used by students seeking employment over the summer vacation. The analysis of the survey data would suggest information relating to temporary employment opportunities was relatively easy to acquire. Of the students who sought full-time employment while 76.5 per cent reported success female students were found less likely to obtain this type of work. Among students who sought part-time employment a slightly lower percentage, 70 per cent were successful. The degree of success by female students in obtaining part-time employment was higher than otherwise expected, however those students in receipt of full maintenance grants appeared to be at a disadvantage in seeking such jobs. In all the models tested mature students, i.e. over 21 years of age, were more successful in obtaining employment than younger students.
Where a student was responsible for dependants they were more successful if they focused their search for either full or part-time employment rather than seeking both types of employment simultaneously.
Of the different search methods available students exhibited a marginal preference for the informal means of job search to the more formal methods identified, nevertheless two of the formal methods, Job Centres and replying to advertisements, proved to be statistically significant in all the models tested. While proving to be a successful means of completing the job search process the Job Centres were under-utilized by the student respondents when compared with other groups of young people under 25 years of age.
Further, in the search for part-time employment only the private employment agencies were also found to be statistically significant. The use of direct approaches to former, or new, employers while being considerably higher than found in previous British studies of job search approximated closely with recent US studies.
The degree of intensity of job search was marginally higher for those seeking part-time employment than in the case of those seeking full-time employment. However, the overall level of job search intensity by students was below that found in other surveys of the population at large.
Students represent one sub-group of the temporary labour force which flows into, and out of, employment. How far it is possible to generalize from this subgroup to explain the experiences of other sub-groups is not known. However, should other sub-sets in the temporary labour force mirror the students' choice of job search methods, by seeking to return to former employers, the indications are they might, on occasions, be better served by using the employment service.
References
1. Stigler, G.J. (1961), "The economics of information", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 69 No. 3, pp. 213-35.
2. Stigler, G.J. (1962), "Information in the labour market", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 70, Supplement, pp. 94-105.
3. Mortensen, D.T. (1986), "Job search and labour market analysis", in Ashenfelter, O. and Layard, R., Handbook of Labour Economics, Vol. 2, North-Holland, Amsterdam.
4. Rees, A. (1966), "Information networks in labour markets", American Economic Review Proceedings, Vol. 56, Supplement, pp. 559-66.
5. Reid, G.L. (1972), "Job search and the effectiveness of job finding methods", Industrial And Labor Relations Review, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 471-95.
6. McGregor, A. (1983), "Neighbourhood influence on job search and job finding methods", British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 91-9.
7. Pissarides, C.A. (1984), "Search intensity, job advertising and efficiency", Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 128-143.
8. Jones, S.R.G. (1989), "Job search methods, intensity and effects", Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 51 No. 3, pp. 277-96.
9. Stephenson, S.P. (1976), "The economics of youth job search behaviour", Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 104-11.
10. Holzer, H.J. (1987), "Job search by employed and unemployed youth", Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 40 No. 4, pp. 601-11.
11. Holzer, H.J. (1988), "Search methods used by unemployed youth", Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 1-20.
12. Casey, B. (1988), "The extent and nature of temporary employment in Britain", Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 487-509.
13. Dale, A. and Barnford, C. (1988), "Temporary workers: cause for concern or complacency?", Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 191-209.
14. Doeringer, P.B. and Piore, M.J. (1971), Internal Labour Markets and Manpower Analysis, Heath Lexington Books, Lexington, MA.
15. Rees, A. and Schultz, G.P. (1970), Workers and Wages in an Urban Labour Market, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
16. Ports, M.H. (1993), "Trends in job search methods: 1970-92", Monthly Labour Review, October, pp. 63-7.
17. Bosworth, D. and Ebrahimi, A. (1989), Characteristics of The Unemployed and The Duration Of Unemployment: Methods And Intensity of Job Search (mimeo), University of Warwick: Institute of Employment Research.
18. Bortnick, S.M. and Ports, M.H. (1992), "Job search methods and results: tracking the unemployed: 1991", Monthly Labour Review, December, pp. 29-35.
19. Greene, W.H. (1993), Econometric Analysis, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, London.
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| Author: | Mallier,Tony; Bailey, Mark |
|---|---|
| Publication: | International Journal of Manpower |
| Date: | Jul 1, 1997 |
| Words: | 4813 |
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