My research seeks to understand the behaviour of workers and firms and how their decisions affect labour market outcomes. My PhD dissertation consists of three separate Chapters that use detailed historical, census and administrative data to gain insights into the mechanisms at play when incentives for production and location decisions change. Chapter 1 asks whether financial incentives can induce inventors to innovate more. I exploit a large reduction in the patent fee in the United Kingdom in 1884 to distinguish between its effect on increased efforts to invent, and a decrease in patent quality due to a lower quality threshold. For this analysis I create a detailed new dataset of 54,000 British inventors with renewal information for each patent. In the longer run high-quality patenting increases by over 100 percent, and the share of new patents due to greater effort accounts for three quarters of the pre-reform share of high-quality patents. To test for the presence of credit constraints I generate two wealth proxies from inventor names and addresses, and find a larger innovation response for inventors with lower wealth. These results indicate efficiency gains from decreasing the cost of inventing and in addition, from relaxing credit constraints. In Chapter 2 we assess the effects of changes in ethnic neighbourhood composition in England and Wales. A change in social housing allocations in the 1990s serves as instrument for changes in the local ethnic composition. For the analysis we create a dataset of highly disaggregated census geographies for 1991-2011. The results imply that an exogenous increase in social housing minority share by 10 percentage points raises the minority share in private housing by 1.2 percentage points initially. This sorting effect is larger for privately rented than for privately owned housing. We further show that an increase in the minority share leads to higher local population growth and a small decrease in house prices in the longer run. Chapter 3 proposes a new approach for analysing responses to comprehensive labour market reforms. Using detailed micro data we evaluate the German Hartz reforms that aimed at reducing unemployment. The timing of the reforms affects the model parameters, which are estimated using matched data on 430,000 workers in 340,000 firms. Contrary to previous findings, our analysis shows that the reforms marginally reduced unemployment at the cost of a pronounced decline in wages. Low-skilled workers suffered the largest wage losses. Furthermore, we decompose the contribution of each reform wave on employment and wages, and document a structural shift in the factors that govern overall wage dispersion.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diego Simoes Correa Maymone.pdf: 10780914 bytes, checksum: cfffcddcaf22956c5fcc458946b863db (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-25 / In recent years the Internet has become one of the most used channels for communicating job opportunities or positions, identifying talents and searching for jobs, allowing changes in the form of action and interaction between those who offer and those looking for a job. Companies and recruiters can now rely on the benefits that the expressive reach of the Internet brought to publishing job opportunities, while the professionals looking for a job have increased resources and tools available to conduct research for job opportunities published by companies in their corporate websites, in online classified ads and in other webbased services, such as online social networks. With the popularity of online social networks, new trends have emerged in the processes for recruitment and job search, fostering the construction of relationships and communities intended to leverage the experience of recruiters and professionals looking for a job. And, in face of this reality, this research aims at analyzing and describing how online social networks support the processes of recruiting and searching for job opportunities. In this exploratory descriptive research, for which the instrument used for collecting data was the bibliographical research, LinkedIn was identified and highlighted among the online social networks that appear as a tool to support the processes assessed herein. LinkedIn is a professional social network, whose role, potential and importance for the recruitment industry has grown as millions of professionals and businesses around the world create their online profiles/resumes, turning this social network into a place where employers and job seekers meet each other. Based on the work of authors like Cappelli, Qualman, Safko, Hunt, Anand, Khun & Skuterud, Santaella, Krueger, and others who study topics such as online social networks, the Internet and/or recruiting and job searching processes, as well as through the analysis of research conducted by Comscore, Jobvite, Bullhorn, and LinkedIn, the present study provided information that proves the high potential of online social networks as being tools to support the processes of recruitment and job search, and identifies and presents the benefits that LinkedIn has brought to the recruiting and job searching processes in Brazil and worldwide / A internet tornou-se um dos canais mais utilizados para a comunicação de oportunidades ou postos de trabalho, identificação de talentos e pesquisa por emprego nos últimos anos, viabilizando mudanças na forma de atuação e interação entre quem oferta e quem procura trabalho. Empresas e recrutadores passaram a contar com os benefícios que o expressivo alcance da internet trouxe para divulgação de oportunidades de trabalho, enquanto os profissionais à procura de emprego tiveram ampliados os recursos e ferramentas disponíveis para a realização de pesquisas por oportunidades de trabalho divulgadas pelas empresas em seus sites corporativos, nos classificados online e em outros serviços baseados na web, como as redes sociais online. Com a popularização das redes sociais online, novos processos de recrutamento e pesquisa por emprego surgem como tendências, favorecendo a construção de relacionamentos e comunidades que pretendem alavancar a experiência dos recrutadores e profissionais à procura de emprego. E, diante dessa realidade, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar e descrever de que forma as redes sociais online suportam os processos de recrutamento e pesquisa por oportunidades de trabalho. Nesta pesquisa exploratória descritiva, cujo instrumento utilizado para a coleta de dados foi a pesquisa bibliográfica, foi identificada e destacada, dentre as redes sociais online que despontam como ferramenta de suporte aos processos aqui avaliados, o LinkedIn, uma rede social profissional cujo papel, potencial e importância para a indústria do recrutamento tem crescido à medida que milhões de profissionais e empresas ao redor do mundo criam seus perfis/currículos online, fazendo dessa rede social um local onde empregadores e pessoas à procura de emprego se encontram. Com base nos trabalhos de autores como Cappelli, Qualman, Safko, Hunt, Anand, Khun & Skuterud, Santaella, Krueger, dentre outros que estudam temas como as redes sociais online, a internet e/ou os processos de recrutamento e pesquisa por emprego, bem como por meio da análise de pesquisas realizadas pela Comscore, Jobvite, Bullhorn e LinkedIn, este trabalho forneceu subsídios que comprovam o alto potencial das redes sociais online como ferramenta de suporte aos processos de recrutamento e pesquisa por oportunidades de trabalho, além de identificar e apresentar os benefícios que o LinkedIn trouxe para os processos de recrutamento e pesquisa por emprego no Brasil e no mundo

The main research problem in this thesis is how unemployed individuals experience and handle the situation of unemployment and how their actions are related to their action possibilities. These are determined by factors like level of education, vocational training, age, citizenship, handicap and level of unemployment on the local labour market. A common assumption is that search behaviour of unemployed individuals strongly affects their possibility to find a job. A central question in this thesis is if individuals’ behaviour has been overemphasised at the expense of real employment opportunities. The empirical part of this thesis is based on longitudinal data collected during a period of high unemployment. The sample is a national random sample existing of 3 500 Swedes interviewed by telephone in the beginning of 1996 and in the end of 1997. The results show that the expectations of the unemployed to find a job as well as their actual search behaviour are shaped by the situation they are in. The unemployed have job expectations that co-vary with their action possibilities, but as many as 31.3 per cent overestimate their chances and 10.5 per cent underestimate them. This result is based on questions about expectations to obtain a job related to the actual employment situation nearly two years later. Unemployed individuals’ job expectations co-vary with their experiences of the unemployment situation. Those who believe that their job chances are bad have a low mental sense of well-being, while the opposite is found among those who believe that their job chances are good. The sense of having control over the situation is important for an individual’s mental sense of well-being. Both strategies of activity and adaptation occur among the unemployed. Strategies that are meant to change the situation in an objective are most common, only a minority of the unemployed seem to have adapted to the situation of unemployment.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer à une meilleure connaissance du marché du travail dans les économies en développement à dominante informelle. Le Mali est son cas d'étude. Dans la première partie, elle met en évidence la difficulté de comprendre le chômage au travers du statut ambigu des actifs de l'informel, oscillant entre le chômage et l'emploi. Nous y montrons que l'économie informelle exacerbe l'instabilité des frontières du chômage sans toutefois aliéner la rigidité des revenus salariaux à la baisse. A l'aide d'une courbe du salaire, nous appréhendons cette dernière et présentons ses causes. La seconde partie de la thèse pr'esente les dispositifs en matière d'emploi et montre que si, d'un côté, ils répondent pour une large part aux besoins du marché du travail et visent à corriger ses principales insuffisances - notamment en matière de financement et de formation -, de l'autre, leur mise en oeuvre se révèle profondément défaillante. Ceci explique les résultats mitigés de certaines mesures malgré plus de deux décennies d'application. Dans la troisième partie, l'attention est tournée vers l'offre de travail, à la faible connaissance de laquelle on peut attribuer une partie des échecs des dispositifs d'emploi. Nous y examinons le rôle de l'environnement familial dans la participation au marché du travail et dans la prospection d'emploi et montrons que plusieurs variables de cet espace peuvent contribuer à la formulation de meilleurs dispositifs / The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the labour market in informal-dominated developing economies. Mali is its study case. In the first part, it highlights the difficulty to approach unemployment through the ambiguous status of the informal workers, swinging between employment and unemployment. We show that the informal economy exacerbates the instability of the unemployment frontiers without alienating the wage stickiness, which we apprehend through a wage curve. The second part of the thesis presents the employment measures and shows that though, on one hand, they respond accurately to the labour market needs and aim to correct its shortcomings - particularly regarding the financing and training -, on the other hand, their execution is deeply dysfunctional. That explains the mitigated results of some measures, in implementation for over two decades. In the third part, the attention is turned to the labour supply, the weak knowledge of which can partially explain the failures of the employment policies. We examine the role of the household environment in the participation decision and the job search and shows that many variables of this environment can contribute to improving the measures.

Analyses about aggregate employment, unemployment, and inactivity rates frequently disregard labor market trends of specific household members, which may explain some puzzles in the relationship between economic activity and labor market participation. The relevance of family approaches of labor supply transcends the aggregate macroeconomic trends and addresses important micro-level analysis concerning the behavior and intrahousehold decisions of members and policy-relevant results. Despite the consensus about the joint labor supply decisions of household members, studies are typically at the individual level and disregard sons and daughters as decision-makers in a family. Therefore, in this thesis, we investigate these questions for Brazil, in two studies. In the first study, we analyze the labor supply decisions of sons daughters aged 14 to 24 years living with their parents, in a reduced form exercise. We collaborate to the empirical literature about intrahousehold impacts of policies, testing whether the minimum wage, which affects the income of parents, impacts the final labor supply decisions of sons and daughters. We also verify if the policy has distinct effects depending on whether the eligible person is the father or the mother, aiming to test the income-pooling hypothesis. Our identification strategy is based on an intention-to-treat approach, and in a differences-in-differences estimator. Another innovation is the use of the PNADC (IBGE) for 2012-2016. We find that the direction and magnitude of the minimum wage effects affecting fathers and mothers, on the labor supply of sons and daughters, depend on who is and how many eligible members there exist in the household: it is negative, whether the eligible person is the mother or the father, and it is positive, whether both are eligible. Therefore, our results strengthen the argument in favor of household approaches, since the income pooling hypothesis does not seem to be valid in this context. In the second study, we investigate how the decisions about labor supply could determine the aggregate results of unemployment and inactivity of the secondary household earners. We develop and estimate a structural household job search model with on-the-job search. We extend Dey and Flinn (2008) to allow for unemployment and inactivity of mothers and sons and daughters who are subject to shocks to their employment and income shocks to fathers. These shocks may determine different search behavior and job acceptance, depending on the other household member\'s labor market situation. The model is estimated using the PME (IBGE) for 2004-2014. We perform counterfactual simulations, and we verify that the decreasing unemployment rate of sons/daughters would not have changed between 2004 and 2014 if the labor market opportunities and conditions of this member remain the same. The unemployment rate of mothers does not alter a lot in this period. The increasing trend in the inactivity of sons/daughters is mostly determined by a decreasing encouragement rate and the increasing dropout rate observed among these members in this period. These exogenous factors that determine the move to or the permanence in the inactivity could be related to the lower cost of education. We conclude that the use of individual job search models to understand aggregate unemployment and inactivity can be misleading, since the household search behavior matters in the labor supply decisions of secondary household earners. / As análises sobre taxas agregadas de emprego, desemprego e inatividade frequentemente ignoram a dinâmica dos membros das famílias no mercado de trabalho, a qual pode explicar puzzles na relação entre atividade econômica e participação no mercado de trabalho. A relevância das abordagens familiares para a oferta de trabalho está nas análises macroeconômicas sobre tendências agregadas, e também em análises microeconômicas do comportamento, decisões intrafamiliares e resultados de políticas. Apesar do consenso sobre as decisões conjuntas de oferta de trabalho dos membros da família, grande parte dos estudos são abordagens individuais e desconsideram filhos jovens como tomadores de decisão. Nesta tese, organizada em dois estudos, investigamos essas questões para o Brasil. No primeiro estudo, analisamos a decisão de ofertar trabalho de jovens entre 14 e 24 anos vivendo com os pais, em um exercício de forma reduzida. A tese colabora com a literatura empírica sobre os efeitos intrafamiliares de políticas, ao testar se o salário mínimo que afeta a renda dos pais impacta a decisão final dos filhos de ofertar trabalho. Também testamos a hipótese de agregação da renda, ao verificar se se a política tem efeitos distintos caso a pessoa elegível na família seja a mãe ou o pai. A estratégia de identificação é baseada em uma abordagem de intention-to-treat, e no uso do estimador de diferenças-em-diferenças. Outra inovação é o uso da PNADC (IBGE) para 2012-2016. Verificamos que a direção e a magnitude dos efeitos do salário mínimo dos pais, na oferta de trabalho dos filhos, dependem de quem é e de quantos são os membros elegíveis na família: o efeito é negativo, se a pessoa elegível é a mãe ou o pai, e é positivo, se ambos são elegíveis. Esses resultados reforçam o argumento em favor das abordagens intrafamiliares, uma vez que a hipótese de income-pooling não parece ser válida neste contexto. No segundo estudo, investigamos como as decisões de oferta de trabalho poderiam determinar os resultados agregados de desemprego e inatividade dos membros secundários. Desenvolvemos e estimamos um modelo estrutural de busca por emprego familiar com on-the-jobsearch. Estendemos o modelo de Dey e Flinn (2008), para permitir desemprego e inatividade de mães e filhos, sujeitos a choques em seus empregos e choques na renda dos pais. Esses choques podem determinar diferentes comportamentos de busca e aceitação de emprego, dependendo da situação do outro membro no mercado de trabalho. O modelo é estimado com a PME (IBGE) para 2004-2014. Realizamos simulações contrafactuais e verificamos que a taxa de desemprego dos filhos, decrescente entre 2004 e 2014, não teria se alterado no período, caso as condições e oportunidades de mercado de trabalho dos filhos tivessem continuado as mesmas de 2004. Já a taxa de desemprego das mães não sofre grandes alterações no período. A tendência crescente na inatividade dos filhos é determinada por uma taxa de encorajamento decrescente e uma taxa de desistência crescente, que refletem fatores exógenos que levam jovens trabalhadores à inatividade. Esses fatores exógenos podem estar relacionados ao menor custo da educação no período. Concluímos que o uso de modelos individuais de busca por emprego para entender o desemprego e a inatividade agregados deve ser desencorajado, pois o comportamento de busca familiar importa para as decisões de oferta de trabalho dos membros secundários da família.

Les récents mouvements sociaux qui ont secoué certains pays arabes notamment l'Algérie ont montré la fragilité de la situation sur le marché du travail dans ces pays en particulier pour les jeunes. Le premier chapitre porte sur l'analyse de la situation du marché du travail en Algérie sur une longue période. Ces dix dernières années la situation de l'emploi s'est dégradée en termes de sécurité de l'emploi en particulier pour les jeunes. La situation reste difficile, d'autant plus que la situation démographique actuelle envisage de fortes pressions sur le marché du travail dans le futur. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous analysons les stratégies de recherche d'emploi notamment par le biais des méthodes informelles. Nos résultats montrent de fortes spécificités liées au genre dans les stratégies de recherche. Dans l'ensemble, les réseaux sociaux apparaissent comme étant une méthode efficace pour trouver un emploi en Algérie mais pas pour des emplois qualifiés. Le troisième chapitre vise à étudier l'architecture des systèmes d'emploi en Algérie. Il ressort que le modèle qui explique le mieux le comportement des hommes et des femmes est un modèle séquentiel à deux niveaux : participation vs non participation et ensuite le choix d'un segment sur le marché du travail. Dans le quatrième chapitre, nous analysons les déterminants du choix du secteur et les salaires pour les hommes et les femmes dans différents secteurs d'activités en Algérie. Nos résultats montrent que les femmes sont moins bien rémunérées par rapport aux hommes dans les différents segments. Le secteur public est celui qui protège le plus les femmes de la discrimination salariale. / Recent social movements that swept some Arab countries including Algeria showed the fragility of the situation on the labor market in these countries in particular for young people. The first chapter deals with the analysis of the situation of the labor market in Algeria over a long period. Over the past decade the employment situation has deteriorated in terms of job security in particular for young people. The situation remains difficult, especially as the current demographic situation considering pressures on the labor market in the future. In the second chapter, we analyze the strategies for job search including through informal methods. Our results show strong gender specificities in search strategies. Overall, social networks appear to be an effective method to find a job in Algeria but not for skilled jobs. The third chapter aims to study the architecture of employment systems in Algeria. It appears that the model that best explains the behavior of men and women is a sequential two-level model: participation vs. non participation and then choosing a segment on the labor market. In the fourth chapter, we analyze the determinants of the choice of sector and wages for men and women in different sectors in Algeria. Our results show that women are paid less compared to men in the various segments. The public sector is the one that best protects women from wage discrimination.

La crise financière de 2009 a ravivé le débat entre les classiques et les keynésiens concernant le rôle de la finance dans le cycle d’affaire. Cette thèse étudie les conséquences macroéconomiques des imperfections du marché de crédit ainsi que quantifie leur impact sur le marché de travail. L’interaction entre chômage et frictions financière passe par l’hypothèse que les postes vacants sont financés par des fonds externes qui sont plus couteux qu’un financement interne, de par de l’impact de l’asymétrie d’information sur le marché du crédit. Il est alors montré, à l’aide de simulation d’un modèle DSGE calibré sur données US., qu’un choc financier négatif, i.e. un choc qui augmente la prime de risque sur le marché du crédit ou un choc qui détériore le bilan des entrepreneurs, réduit de manière significative les capacités d’emprunt, et, par conséquent, la création d’emplois diminue spécialement. En outre, un choc d'incertitude engendre une augmentation du taux de chômage et rend cette augmentation plus persistante en période de crise. Ce résultat est confirmé par une évidence empirique qui consistait à estimer un modèle VAR bayésien, où des variables de marché de travail réelles et financières. / The crisis of 2009 raised the question whether the financial conditions matter for the business cycles and the propagation of shocks originating in the financial sphere. I tried to drive a fine analysis of this issue using micro-founded general equilibrium models. The modelling choice was backed by empirical motivations. In three essays, i study the impact of monetary and financial shocks on growth and labour market dynamics. First, an expansionary monetary policy eases credit conditions, raises risk tolerance and the quality of borrowers and generates a liquidity effect. The potency of the monetary policy and the size of the credit channel depend considerably on the degree of financial frictions in the credit market. Second, a restrictive monetary policy shock, an positive credit shock and a positive uncertainty shocks have similar effects on the economy: they plunge the economy in a recession, with output, job creations, and hours worked decreasing, while unemployment and job destructions increase. In all cases the interest rate spread increase, therefore indicating that financial conditions deteriorate, which is interpreted as a sign that financial frictions play a critical role in the propagation of these shocks. Third, the interaction between financial and labour market frictions does exist. The interplay between the two indeed plays a role in propagating the shocks. A shock to net worth, a credit shock and an uncertainty shock play a non-trivial role for the dynamics on the labour market.

Cette thèse porte sur les effets de transferts monétaires sur l’emploi dans le marché du travail sud-africain, un marché fortement segmenté entre secteur formel et informel. Le premier et principal chapitre montre qu’un programme de transferts monétaires inconditionnels destinés aux mères a eu des effets positifs durables sur la qualité de leurs emplois. Sur le long terme, les mères bénéficiaires du transfert sont plus susceptibles d’être employées dans le secteur formel. C’est la conséquence de changements dans la façon dont les mères traitées cherchent un emploi. En leur donnant la possibilité de rester au chômage pendant plus longtemps, le programme de transferts inconditionnels leur permet de viser des emplois de meilleure qualité. Le deuxième chapitre étudie les effets sur l’emploi d’une réforme du système public de retraites en Afrique du Sud, qui est non-contributif et soumis à conditions de ressources. Cette réforme a abaissé l’âge de la retraite de 65 à 60 ans pour les hommes. Elle a entraîné une forte diminution du taux d’activité des travailleurs informels, qui cessent de travailler lorsqu’ils atteignent 60 ans et deviennent éligibles à la pension de retraite non-contributive. Au contraire, les travailleurs du secteur formel ne quittent pas leur emploi et ne se tournent pas vers le secteur informel pour avoir droit à la pension de retraite. Enfin, cette thèse aborde la question du faible nombre de travailleurs indépendants en Afrique du Sud. Le dernier chapitre montre que les Sud-Africains ne travaillent pas plus à leur compte en réponse à des transferts monétaires. Cela indique que les contraintes de liquidité ne sont pas la principale raison du manque de travailleurs indépendants en Afrique du Sud. Cette faible présence de travailleurs indépendants a probablement des racines historiques liées à l’apartheid. Ce troisième chapitre examine les implications potentielles de cette explication, ainsi que les pistes de recherches futures possibles pour une compréhension plus fine de ce phénomène. / This dissertation studies the employment effects of cash transfers in a segmented labor market. The first and main chapter shows that an unconditional cash transfer program targeted at mothers has lasting positive impacts on job quality. Five years after having received the cash transfer, treated mothers are more likely to be employed in the formal sector. This appears to be the result of changes in the way recipients search for a job, as treated mothers are unemployed for longer and target better jobs. The second chapter shows the employment effects of a reform in the means-tested, non-contributory pension system of South Africa, which lowered the age of retirement from 65 to 60 for men. The reform caused a large extensive-margin response, as informal workers stop working when they become eligible to the pension. Instead, formal workers do not quit their jobs nor switch to the informal sector to become eligible to the pension. Lastly, this dissertation discusses the lack of self-employment in South Africa. Building on the results of the first two chapters, the last chapter shows that South Africans do not increase entry to self-employment as a result of cash transfers. This indicates that liquidity constraints are not the main reason for the lack of self-employment in South Africa, which is likely to have historical roots stemming from Apartheid. The chapter discusses evidence and potential policy implications of this explanation, alongside possible avenues for future research on this phenomenon.

I den ständigt föränderliga mediebranschen är sociala medier en integrerad del av både det personliga och det professionella livet. Detta skapar en komplex rekryteringsmiljö för arbetssökande, som ständigt måste balansera att vara synliga på arbetsmarknaden samtidigt som de försöker bevara sitt privatliv. Syftet med denna studie är därtill att undersöka hur anställda inom mediebranschen upplever jobbsökningsprocessen inom mediebranschen och granskning av arbetstagare på sociala medier, samt hur arbetstagare reflekterar över potentiella kraven och förväntningar av att vara aktiv och kunnig på sociala medier. Trots att granskning av arbetstagare på sociala medier är ett relativt nytt forskningsområde, har få studier utforskat branschspecifika skillnader. Den här studien ämnar att bidra till detta forskningsområde genom att kolla närmare på mediebranschen, med hjälp av de teoretiska ramverken självmarknadsföring, granskning av arbetssökande på sociala medier och digital kompetens. Studien baseras på kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer med personer som anställts inom mediebranschen under de fem senaste åren för att ta reda på deras upplevelser och reflektioner. Urvalet baseras på ett målstyrt och kriteriestyrt urval, med ett kompletterande bekvämlighetsurval. Intervjuerna har genomförts på Zoom och baserats på en intervjuguide. En tematisk analys tillämpas för att identifiera mönster och teman i det empiriska materialet. Resultatet av studien visar att jobbsökningsprocessen inom mediebranschen upplevs som utmanande och konkurrensutsatt, förstärkt av den osäkra ekonomiska situationen. Digitaliseringen av branschen har ökat konkurrensen, särskilt för nyutexaminerade. Trots betydelsen av synlighet på sociala medier väljer många att skydda sin integritet genom privata profiler. Granskningen av arbetstagare på sociala medier ses inte som en integritetskränkning utan som en del av det moderna arbetslivet. Digital kompetens anses viktigt, men de flesta anser att arbetsgivare redan förväntar sig detta. Framtida forskning bör inkludera arbetstagarens perspektiv samt jämföra med de personer som fortfarande söker jobb. / In the ever-changing media industry, social media is an integral part of both personal and professional life. This creates a complex recruitment environment for job seekers, who must constantly balance visibility in the job market while preserving their privacy. The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in the media industry perceive the job application process and scrutiny of employees on social media, as well as how employees reflect on the potential requirements and expectations of being active and knowledgeable on social media. Despite scrutiny of employees on social media being a relatively new research area, few studies have explored industry-specific differences. This study aims to contribute to this research area by focusing on the media industry, utilizing theoretical frameworks such as self-branding, cybervetting, and digital competence. The study is based on qualitative research interviews with individuals employed in the media industry over the past five years to uncover their experiences and reflections. The selection is based on purposive and criterion-based sampling, with supplementary convenience sampling. Interviews were conducted via Zoom and based on an interview guide. A thematic analysis is applied to identify patterns and themes in the empirical material. The results of the study indicate that the job application process in the media industry is perceived as challenging and competitive, exacerbated by the uncertain economic situation. The digitization of the industry has increased competition, especially for recent graduates. Despite the importance of visibility on social media, many choose to protect their privacy through private profiles. Scrutiny of employees on social media is not seen as a violation of privacy but as part of modern work life. Digital competence is considered important, but most believe that employers already expect this. Future research should include the perspective of employees and compare them with individuals still seeking employment.

Stress is a common health problem among students, and individuals with a minority identity might also experience minority stress. Minority stress associated with skin color is a relatively unexplored topic in Sweden; thus this study aims to investigate a possible connection between students' skin color and their minority stress from a jobseeker's perspective. To investigate this, a digital survey consisting of 25 items was carried out. Participants (n=177)  were recruited through convenience sampling and categorized into three groups based on skin color (light, medium light/dark, dark). A one-way ANOVA was carried out to test the study's hypothesis that students with darker skin have a higher degree of minority stress prior to the job search process than students with lighter skin. The result showed a significant difference between the groups(F2,174=34.5, p<.001, 2= .275) and a post-hoc test (Tukey) showed significant differences between each group. The result was consistent with the study's hypothesis and previous research. Furthermore, this study concludes that minority stress can give rise to mental illness. Additionally, the study concludes that Meyer's American framework, which aims to measure minority stress in gay and bisexual individuals, can be applied in a Swedish context with racist stress factors. For further research, a more representative sample would be beneficial, as well as a broadened perspective by examining how schools and workplaces work to counter minority stress, which in turn could prevent mental illness.