Is labor matching effectiveness dependent on education level, age or gender?

This paper explores the role of employment pool composition on labor matching effectiveness in ten Central and Eastern European countries from 2005 to 2023. We control for the structure of the labor force in terms of education, age, and gender. The results point towards a significant impact of labor force structure on labor market outcomes. In particular, an improvement in labor matching is associated with a larger share of the labor force with advanced education. In contrast, the opposite is true for the share of women and younger persons in the labor force. The results are robust to different specifications of the model when we control for the role of institutional factors in regulating national labor markets. From a policy perspective, this study highlights the need for targeted policies to increase the efficiency of the matching process aimed at specific structures of the labor force.