J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job SearchReturn

This paper empirically analyses the determining factors of the growth in the migration rate in the countries of the Western Balkans. The analysis is carried out with panel data over 17 years from 2005 to 2021. The purpose of this paper is to analyse social variables such as unemployment and standard of living, and political variables such as corruption, political stability, government effectiveness, rule of law and the level of corruption in the migration of citizens. For this purpose, we employ different econometric models and techniques such as OLS, OLS robust fixed and random effects models, and GMM (generalized method of moments). The study's findings demonstrate that high levels of unemployment in the Western Balkan region are the primary cause of the surge in migration; thus, large levels of labour force migration are also present in these countries. The findings also show that variables related to the political situation have statistical significance in reducing migration. The paper does not find a statistically significant influence of the level of corruption on migration. The recommendations for the countries of the Western Balkan region are to create long-term sustainable employment policies and increase wages as preventive measures for migration.

We analyse the extent and determinants of somewhat gloomy employment prospects of older unemployed populations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. For this purpose, we explore the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions over the period 2004-2014. Survival estimates suggest that older unemployed workers face lower job-finding probabilities compared to prime-age unemployed workers, while this age-based gap increases with longer unemployment spells. The results of estimating the hazard models reveal that the job-finding probability of older unemployed workers is about 20-25% lower than that of the prime-age group, even after controlling for explanatory covariates and unobserved heterogeneity. Unemployment duration appears to be the major determinant of job-finding probability within both age groups. In contrast, the impact of explanatory covariates (gender, education, household characteristics, etc.) is relatively less robust and/or uniform.

The paper examines the duration of unemployment in the Czech Republic in the three selected years (2008, 2010 and 2014). It is based on the Czech Statistical Office data collected from the Labour Force Sample Survey. Lognormal probability distribution (unimodal positively skewed heavy-tailed distribution) is used in the Accelerated Failure Time regression model including the following factor explanatory variables: years (three levels, 2008, 2010, 2014), gender (two levels), education (four levels), five-year age groups (nine levels) and municipality size (five levels). Apart from this parametric model, Turnbull's nonparametric estimator of the survival function is evaluated for subsamples defined by the year, gender and education. The effects of education and gender - a strong positive one of the former and less significant one of the latter, respectively - are quantified and assessed.

We analyse labour market flows and unemployment rate dynamics in the Czech Republic (CR), Slovakia and Poland. Relative involvement of working-age individuals in movements between various labour market states appears to be approximately five times lower in Central Europe than in the U.S./UK. Compared to neighbouring countries, the CR suffers from a relatively weaker net flow of individuals from unemployment to employment. This net flow alone would cut the unemployment rate in Poland more than twice as fast as in the CR. In particular, currently unemployed Czech men, individuals with primary education, and the 55-65 age group are adversely affected by this national-specific feature of labour market flows.

Economic transition in the Czech Republic has created a group of long-term unemployed people, many of whom do not actively seek out employment opportunities and instead rely on social assistance. A number of subjective and objective factors contribute to this problem, including the shifting demands of the labour market, regional variation, workers' attitudes and skill level, and the relationship between social assistance benefits and the minimum wage. This article assesses the issue of workers' motivation. Although there are combinations of factors that result in low motivation to search for jobs, the social assistance system is especially at fault and structural changes must be made to better foster workers' engagement and motivation. The problem with the social assistance system is finding the balance between protecting people from poverty and motivating them to work.

The fundamental question which we deal with in this paper is: from which sources do organizations in Slovenia most frequently obtain new staff. We questioned 1,075 people who are employed. We discovered that more than 40 % of them became employed through personal contacts. This means that they know someone at the organization they are employed in. This type of employment procedure is not typical in the contemporary world. It was established that those who became employed because of personal contacts are not promoted any faster than those who became employed by normal application procedures. Therefore, the method of recruiting does not influence promotion.