Tackling Youth Employment through Digital Skills Bootcamps: Experimental Evidence from Peru

Youth unemployment remains a significant challenge in developing countries. Digital bootcamps have emerged as a potential solution, offering intensive, short-term training in advanced digital skills. However, their effectiveness is largely untested. This paper aims to investigate the causal impacts of the Jóvenes Bicentenario program in Peru, which provided free digital skills bootcamps to disadvantaged young individuals. To do so, we utilize an individual-level randomized controlled trial, which was embedded during the applications to the program.

To assess the impacts of the program, we will use government administrative records merged with our experimental sample. Specifically, we will use the Planilla Electrónica (PE), the Peruvian matched employer-employee dataset. The PE is a document that all formal firms in Peru with more than two workers are required to submit. Access to information from the PE is restricted and has been granted with express authorization from the MTPE to identify the impact of Jóvenes Bicentario on formal employment indicators.

However, given the high prevalence of informality in the Peruvian labor market, analyses based solely on these records risk missing informal employment effects and broader livelihood impacts. Furthermore, as administrative data, the PE dataset provides no information on participant experiences of the Jóvenes Bicentario bootcamp, such as satisfaction with the program or perceived value. Therefore, to complement the administrative records, we conducted a phone survey roughly two years after the end of the treatment period. This survey measured participants’ employment, education, and program perceptions.