Sam Jones presents IGM paper at Jobs and Development Conference

On 14–15 December 2022, the World Bank, IZA (Institute of Labor Economics), UNU-WIDER, and the Network on Jobs and Development co-organized an in-person conference on jobs and development in Cape Town, South Africa. Entitled ‘The Challenge of Creating Better Jobs in Developing Countries’ the 2022 #Jobs4Dev Conference featured recent research covering a wide range of topics from youth unemployment in Africa, education & skills, and migration and remittances, to climate change, and gender gaps in the labor market.

Sam Jones, UNU-WIDER Research Fellow and Resident Advisor in the Inclusive Growth in Mozambique (IGM) programme based at the Mozambican Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), presented a recent IGM study on the role of digital matching platforms in promoting labour market outcomes in Mozambique. The study uses a randomized experiment embedded in a study tracking job transitions of graduates from Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to analyse whether digital labour market platforms have the capacity to reduce search friction in both formal and informal labour markets. The results show that the formal employment platform (Emprego) led to better labour market results for men and the informal employment platform (Biscate) for women.

The conference took place at the Conference Centre, V&A Waterfront, in Cape Town, and brought together a wide audience of market (development) economists from relevant research institutions and universities representing both academic and policy audiences. Keynote speakers included Oriana Bandiera, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and Ragui Assaad, Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.