Improving Labour Market Efficiency in Ghana: The Job Centre Experiment

Last registered on March 31, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Improving Labour Market Efficiency in Ghana: The Job Centre Experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007381
Initial registration date
March 30, 2021

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 31, 2021, 10:45 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Economics Department, University of Ghana

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
International Growth Centre
PI Affiliation
International Growth Centre
PI Affiliation
Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-04-15
End date
2021-10-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The labour market in Ghana is largely characterised by informal recruitment practices (such as through personal networks, etc). While these practices may not be bad in themselves, the scale at which they are used can reduce the information flow and competitiveness in the recruitment process. This can affect the efficiency of the labour market in matching vacancies to more suitable candidates. Efficient labour markets can match workers with the most suitable jobs for their skill set as well as incentivise both employees and employers to act in ways that promote productivity. Thus, an efficient labour market makes it possible for workers to work as efficiently as possible and makes it possible for employers to provide the right incentives. In November 2019, the government of Ghana, through its Youth Employment Agency (YEA) established a Job Centre online platform to play a crucial role in coordinating and facilitating job placements. This is the first public online general job portal that is designed to provide free employment services to Ghanaian residents, especially the youth who are searching for entry to mid-career level positions. The YEA Job Centre portal allows job seekers to register, and search for jobs or can upload their CVs to advertise themselves to prospective employers. It also allows employers to register their businesses or institutions, place advertisements for vacancies or request the Job Centre to recruit personnel for them.
In this study, we evaluate the impact of the job Centre portal on labour market efficiency in Accra in the context of a randomized control trial. In our design we randomize job vacancies in treatment and control arms where vacancies in the treatment arms are advertised on the job centre portal while employers of vacancies in the control arm are allowed to recruit using their usual (informal) means.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Asante, Kofi Takyi et al. 2021. "Improving Labour Market Efficiency in Ghana: The Job Centre Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. March 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7381-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention is to publish vacancies on the job portal
Intervention Start Date
2021-04-20
Intervention End Date
2021-05-21

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Employer Satisfaction ( of selected/hired employee)
Employee Satisfaction (with job)
Employee Satisfaction (with wages and benefits)
Quality of Applicants
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Each outcome is an index constructed from a number of variables.
Employer satisfaction with selected/hired employee will be based on variables that captures the experience, education and overall suitability of the employee
Employee satisfaction with the job is based on the variables: satisfaction with supervisor, with co-workers, with promotion prospects, with operation conditions, with communication and nature of work.
Employee satisfaction with wages and benefits index will be constructed based on the variables: remuneration, fringe benefits and contingent benefits
Quality of applicants index will be based on the variables: number of qualified applicants, rigour of selection process, competitiveness of applicants.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The job vacancies will then be randomly assigned to one of the recruitment interventions or the pure control group to make up the three groups. We plan to undertake complete randomization in daily blocks into one of the three groups.
1. Treatment Group 1 (T1) – Only the basic job vacancy information will be published on the job portal.
2. Treatment Group 2 (T2) – Detailed vacancy information is published on the job portal
3. Pure Control – Vacancies in this group will not be published on the portal.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomisation of vacancies is done by a computer
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomisation is vacancies.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
800-1000 vacancies
Sample size: planned number of observations
1000 vacancies
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
300 vacancies in control; 300 in treatment with less detailed vacancy description;300 in treatment with detailed vacancy description
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With the outcome variables being measured on a likert scale of 1-5, if we assume that the control group mean is 4 (which is good), with an assumed treatment effect size of 0.5, it means that the group mean of the treatment group will be 4.5 if we consider a single treatment arm. To achieve 80% power if a true effect of that size exists the sample size of about 510 is required. The unit is vacancies.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Ghana Ethics Committee for the Humanities
IRB Approval Date
2020-10-16
IRB Approval Number
(ECH 035/ 20-21)
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials