The personal touch. Customer-satisfaction with public employment agencies

Modern public employment agencies should fulfill several functions: placing job-seekers in jobs, providing advice for the job search, offering job-related training, and assessing eligibility for unemployment benefits. They are thus service centers, supposed to aid their customers in finding new jobs, as well as in tiding over until then. Yet, while there are in general ample studies on the efficiency of labor-market policies, there is scarce academic literature analyzing specifically to which extent customers of public employment agencies are satisfied with the services provided and which factors drive satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The present paper sets out to close this gap, drawing on a novel panel survey of young unemployed in Austria. Our results do not only add to the scientific understanding of an important aspect of labor-market policies, but can also help to optimize employment services.