Recruiting Intensity During and after the Great Recession: National and Industry Evidence

16 Pages Posted: 27 Jan 2012 Last revised: 2 Feb 2023

See all articles by Steven Davis

Steven Davis

Stanford University

Steven J. Davis

University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Hoover Institution

Jason Faberman

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Bureau of Labor Statistics - Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics

John Haltiwanger

University of Maryland - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: January 2012

Abstract

We measure job-filling rates and recruiting intensity per vacancy at the national and industry levels from January 2001 to September 2011 using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Construction makes up less than 5 percent of employment but accounts for more than 40 percent of the large swings in the job-filling rate during and after the Great Recession. Leisure & Hospitality accounts for nearly a quarter of the large drop in recruiting intensity during the Great Recession. We show that industry-level movements in job-filling rates and recruiting intensity are at odds with the implications of the standard matching function in labor search theory but consistent with a generalized function that incorporates an important role for recruiting intensity per vacancy.

Suggested Citation

Davis, Steven and Davis, Steven J. and Faberman, Jason and Haltiwanger, John C., Recruiting Intensity During and after the Great Recession: National and Industry Evidence (January 2012). NBER Working Paper No. w17782, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1992820

Steven Davis (Contact Author)

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Steven J. Davis

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