Reaching marginalised jobseekers through public employment services: experimental evidence from Ethiopia
High rates of unemployment and self-employment is a growing challenge in low-income countries. Information frictions are a key factor and can exacerbate gender and education gaps in labour market outcomes.
Public employment services (PES), local government agencies that provide job search assistance, have been widely tested and shown to support marginalized jobseekers in high-income countries. But there is limited rigorous evidence on whether they work in low-income settings.
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Hardy-et-al-Policy-Brief-February-2026.pdf
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This policy brief presents emerging findings from one of the first experimental evaluations of a PES reform aimed at reducing information frictions, implemented in partnership with the government of Ethiopia.
Findings suggest that bringing vacancy information to jobseekers through simple booklets significantly improved paid employment and income for lower-skilled women and increased their job applications and offers.
Existing community networks played a central role in channelling high-quality information, making the intervention scalable at a fraction of standard active labour market policies’ costs.