Does the internet increase the job finding rate? Evidence from a period of expansion in internet use

Abstract

We examine the impact of household access to the internet on job finding rates in Germany during a period (2006–2009) in which the share of households with a broadband connection increased by 31 percentage points, and job-seekers increased their use of the internet as a search tool. During this period, household access to broadband internet was almost completely dependent on the availability of a particular technology (DSL). We therefore exploit the variation in DSL availability across municipalities as an instrument for household access to the internet. OLS estimates which control for differences in individual and local area characteristics suggest a job finding advantage of about six percentage points. The IV estimates are substantially larger, but much less precisely estimated. However, we cannot reject the hypothesis that, conditional on observables, residential computer access with internet was as good as randomly assigned with respect to the job finding rate. The hypothesis that residential internet access helped job-seekers find work because of its effect on the job search process is supported by the finding that residential internet access greatly increased the use of the internet as a search method. We find some evidence that household access to the internet reduced the use of traditional job search methods, but this effect is outweighed by the increase in internet-based search methods.