Seek and Ye Shall Find: How Search Requirements Affect Job Finding Rates of Older Workers

Unemployment insurance recipients in the Netherlands were for many years exempted from the requirement to actively search for a job after they reached the age of 57.5. We study how this exemption affected the job finding rates of the recipients involved. Our results indicate that the job finding rate starts to fall just prior to the removal of the search requirement at age 57.5. In addition we find a large negative effect on job finding rates of the actual removal of the search requirement at age 57.5. Apparently, even for persons with seemingly poor job prospects search requirements have a positive effect on finding rates.