The lack of wage employment opportunity in many developing countries leads to a sorting across sectors by education: low-skilled individuals, who cannot afford to wait in unemployment, create their own employment in the informal sector. Skilled individuals prefer to queue in the hope of obtaining a high-value job in the formal sector. The latter group in particular has a strong preference for wage employment in the public sector that offers more job security. This research project covers a moderate scale pilot survey on labour market expectations of labour market entrants in Cote d’Ivoire. The objective is (i) to gain experience in the design of the questionnaire and test it in the field, and (ii) to assess plausible research hypotheses with the generated data.
Following the insights from a prior small, representative pilot survey on young Ivoirian graduates collected in November 2023, the researchers designed and tested a short follow-up survey on the same individuals in the first two weeks of April 2024. The target population is labour market entrants and job seekers between 18 and 35 years with completed lower secondary education. The follow-up survey asked respondents about their job search and public sector entry exams, job offers and self-employment opportunities in the past four months, (changes in) their employment situation, labour market expectations and preferences for hypothetical job offers from different sectors of employment.
Besides informing the questionnaire design for a larger scale operation, the data will allow the researchers to gain a thorough understanding of young graduates’ labour market situation, their job search behaviour and preferences for different sectors of employment. The choice of talented individuals to sort into rent-seeking occupations in the public sector instead of productive (entrepreneurial) activities can hurt economic growth and can create unemployment. Thus, a solid understanding of young graduates’ labour market expectations and job search is key for designing effect young labour market policies in the affected countries.
