gives workseekers in multi-generation households access to non-labor market income, increasing reservation wages (Abel, 2019).

Fourth, employment rates are low. In our study period, unemployment in Johannesburg was 28% for the working-age population, 51% for ages 15-24, and 32% for ages 25-34 (Statistics South Africa, 2016).<sup>10</sup> Low employment in the presence of information frictions, costs from ‘wrong’ hires, and reservation or minimum wages are consistent with our conceptual framework. Particularly low employment for youths is also consistent with information frictions, as youths have less search and work experience to reveal their types. Many other factors can contribute to low employment rates; we merely argue that a role for information frictions is plausible.

# **2.3 Sample Recruitment and Data Collection**

We recruit a sample of 6,891 young, active workseekers from low-income backgrounds with limited work experience. Workseekers in our sample have limited access to traditional ways to learn about their skills and communicate their skills to prospective employers: university education, work experience, or access to referral networks. We recruit only active workseekers, so we do not examine the relationship between information frictions and labor market participation decisions. This is a sample from a policy- and theory-relevant population likely to face information frictions, rather than a population-representative sample.

To recruit the sample, we work with the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, a social enterprise that assesses the skills of inexperienced workseekers and matches them to employers looking for entry-level workseekers, among other activities. Harambee recruits candidates through radio and social media advertising and door-to-door recruitment in low-income neighborhoods. Interested candidates register online and complete a phone-based screening questionnaire.<sup>11</sup> Eligible candidates are invited to two days of standardized skill assessments. Some candidates are invited to further job readiness training based on their assessment results and residential location, but only 0.2% of candidates in our sample get jobs through this training. Our sample consists of all candidates who arrive at Harambee for the second of these two testing days, on 84 operational days.

We conduct three surveys to measure workseekers’ labor market outcomes, job search, and beliefs about their skills and the labor market. The baseline is a self-administered questionnaire that candidates complete on desktop computers at Harambee under supervision. This is administered after candidates have done skills assessments but before they receive information about their results. 10Throughout the paper, we use Statistics South Africa’s definition of an employed person as someone who did any income-generating activity, for at least one hour, during the reference week. Unemployment rates exclude those in full-time education or not in the labor force.

> 11Candidates are eligible to work with Harambee if they are aged 18-29, have legal permission to work in South Africa, have completed secondary school, have at most 12 months of formal work experience, have no criminal record, and are from disadvantaged backgrounds. This information is self-reported but checked against administrative data for some candidates.

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