Online Buddies for Job Seekers: A Field Experiment

Bart K. de Koning; Paul Muller; Michèle Belot; Yvonne Engels; Didier Fouarge; Mario Keer; Philipp Kircher; Sandra Phlippen

doi:10.3386/w34912

Online Buddies for Job Seekers: A Field Experiment

Bart K. de Koning, Paul Muller, Michèle Belot, Yvonne Engels, Didier Fouarge, Mario Keer, Philipp Kircher & Sandra Phlippen

Working Paper 34912

DOI 10.3386/w34912

Issue Date February 2026

We design an online platform to connect unemployed job seekers with ‘buddies’: former job seekers who recently found employment. We focus on job seekers who search in occupations with poor prospects and buddies who successfully switched occupations. In a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the impact of access to the platform on labor market outcomes. We find sizable effects. Thirteen to 18 months after getting access, initially unemployed job seekers are 6 percentage points (11%) more likely to be employed and earn e 226 more per month than those without access. The positive impact is concentrated among the long-term unemployed.

We are grateful to the many colleagues at the Public Employment Office in the Netherlands (UWV, the Dutch ‘Employee Insurance Agency’) for the collaboration that enabled this project. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support through ESRC grant ES/L009633/1 and the financial support from ROA (Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market; Maastricht University). Kircher acknowledges the support of the University of Edinburgh through his affiliation as Honorary Professorial Fellow during the work on the project. Fouarge acknowledges the financial support of NRO, UWV, Randstad, S-BB (grant: 405-17-900). Muller acknowledges financial support from a Vidi grant from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO).

The project involved collaboration with the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV), which provided the data used in the analysis. Two authors are UWV employees (Yvonne Engels and Mario Keer). All authors retained full autonomy in conducting the research and preparing the manuscript, and no external party had the right to approve or censor any parts of the paper prior to its circulation. The paper was shared with the board of UWV prior to circulation, as a courtesy. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Philipp Kircher
Fouarge (ROA, Maastricht University) acknowledges the financial support of NRO (research grant: 405-17-900). NRO (Netherlands Initiative for Educational Research) is part of the Dutch Research Council and the current research is part of a larger project at ROA called Project Onderwijs-Arbeidsmarkt (POA). As part of the grant conditions, NRO urged ROA to organize co-funding and UWV, S-BB and Randstad are cofounding the POA research. ROA’s contacts at UWV helped make the experiment possible, but at no times did ROA’s direct contacts at UWV intervene in the research design, research output or conclusions we draw from the research.

Sandra Phlippen held a position as chief economist of ABN AMRO Bank N.V. during the period in which this study was conducted. ABN AMRO Bank N.V. was not involved in the study and did not review it prior to submission.
Copy Citation

Bart K. de Koning, Paul Muller, Michèle Belot, Yvonne Engels, Didier Fouarge, Mario Keer, Philipp Kircher, and Sandra Phlippen, "Online Buddies for Job Seekers: A Field Experiment," NBER Working Paper 34912 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34912.

Download Citation

MARC RIS BibTeΧ
- randomized controlled trials registry entry

Online Buddies for Job Seekers: A Field Experiment

Related

Topics

Programs

More from the NBER