Job search intensity of unemployed workers and the business cycle

摘要

This paper provides empirical evidence for the cyclicality in the job search intensity of unemployed workers using data on job search behavior from the Dutch National Bank Household Survey (DHS), an annual panel survey, for the years 1993 until 2018. I find that job search intensity is counter-cyclical, adding to the mixed results of prior studies that mainly rely on data from the US. This finding is robust to using different measures of search intensity and business cycle indicators. The counter-cyclical pattern seems to be driven by changes in the composition of searchers. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.