Search strategies of the unemployed in the Russian Federation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of job search and human capital of the unemployed in the Russian Federation for obtaining a job the following year. Design/methodology/approach – Cross-sectional data on human capital and job-search strategies from different years of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey are used in different probit specifications to present and analyse empirical results. Findings – Searching through friends and directly are the most common search methods, implying a large trust in networks. Moreover, people tend to do the right thing when trusting their networks; in 1994, searching via friends and directly were the only methods with a positive impact. People used fewer methods in 1994 and the impact of job searching is also higher in the latter two samples. This indicates a society gradually adapting to unemployment. As regards human capital, it is worth noticing that the results in 2004 are in accordance with several predictions of human capital theory, whereas the impact of medium education and work experience in the samples based on earlier years is weaker. This suggests that more people have had time to upgrade their skills, to obtain relevant work experience and/or to obtain a post transition secondary education in 2003. Originality/value – This paper identifies the importance of both different job-search strategies and human capital when searching for a job in the Russian Federation. The result presented may be of interest to both policy-makers and scientists.