Unemployed people in search of a job: Reconsidering the role of search behavior

A three-wave longitudinal study of unemployed persons in Croatia was used to examine the antecedents of job-seeking behavior and reemployment. A series of demographic, motivational and job-constraint variables were posited to influence job-seeking behavior, which, in turn, was hypothesized to affect (re)employment. The participants were surveyed in 2003 (N = 1138), and their employment status was checked in 2004 (N = 601) and 2005 (N = 452). Regression analyzes supported only one slice of the model—the antecedent-job-search relations. All motivational variables, in particular employment commitment and perceived financial strain, proved to be relatively strong predictors of job-search intensity. However, they appeared to be only weakly related to the (re)employment outcome. Demographic variables—in particular education, age, and employment duration—appeared to be the main determinants of (re)employment, operating presumably through their influence on employers’ hiring decisions. It was suggested that existing theory and heuristic frameworks overstate the importance of job-seeking activity. Further research is suggested to examine why purposeful and proactive job searching does not pay more.