Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/152428 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Citation: 
[Journal:] IZA Journal of Labor & Development [ISSN:] 2193-9020 [Volume:] 5 [Issue:] 9 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2016 [Pages:] 1-23
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
Employers around the world complain that youth lack the soft skills needed for success in the workplace. In response, a number of employment programs have begun to incorporate soft skills training, but to date there has been little evidence as to the effectiveness of such programs. This paper reports on a randomized experiment in Jordan in which female community college graduates were randomly assigned to a soft skills training program. Despite this program being twice as long in length as the average program in the region, and taught by a well-regarded provider, we find soft skills training does not have any significant employment impact in three rounds of follow-up surveys. We elicit expectations of academics and development professionals and reveal that these findings are novel and unexpected.
Subjects: 
Soft skills
Youth unemployment
Randomized experiment
Expectation elicitation
JEL: 
O12
O15
J08
J16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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