Data statement
This paper uses data on the labor market in South Africa, collected from five sources. The first source is a workseeker-level survey dataset collected by the authors, which records participants’ employment, job search, and beliefs relevant to their employment, job search, and skills. The second source is an administrative dataset obtained from the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. This records participants’ scores on skill assessments. We merge these sources using participants’ national identity numbers and names. The third source is a correspondence study dataset collected by the authors, which records job application characteristics and outcomes. The fourth source is a firm-level dataset containing survey and choice experiment data. These data are provided as part of the replication package (Carranza et al., 2022).
One table in Appendix D uses publicly-available data from Statistics South Africa (Statistics South Africa, 2016, 2017). These data can be accessed from the URLs included in the bibliographic entries and are not included in the replication package.
Statement about Rights: The authors of the manuscript have legitimate access to and permission to use the data used in this manuscript. See the accompanying letter granting permission from the external data provider, the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Users interested in accessing the original data that the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator shared with the authors can contact the organization at https://harambee.co.za/, although the organization has not indicated that they will respond to any such requests.