Online job search in the Spanish labor market $ Raquel Campos, María Arrazola, José de Hevia n Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Paseo Artilleros s/n, 28032 Madrid, Spain article info Available online 22 October 2014 Keywords: ICT Internet adoption and usage Labor market Job search Spain abstract Using data from the Spanish survey on equipment and use of ICTs in households for the period 2007–2011, we study the decision of Spanish jobseekers to search for a job online, and explore potential differences between unemployed and employed workers. Since only those jobseekers that have accessed the Internet can perform an online job search, we use bivariate probit selection models to correct for potential selection bias. Our results show that Internet Spanish jobseekers tend to be younger, better educated, more Internet-savvy, and live in urban areas compared to those that only use traditional search channels. However, we find that employment-to-employment and unemployment-to-employment transitions differ by gender, nationality, household income, and time aggregate factors. We find evidence of a digital divide in adoption and usage by age and educational attainment. These findings suggest that policy makers and human resources managers should take into account these disparities in Internet usage to guide their public programs and recruiting strategies. & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and especially the Internet, have significantly changed many aspects of our social, political and economical environments – including labor markets. According to Autor (2001), there are several labor market features affected by the Internet, both in the supply and demand side. Such features include, among others, the way that labor services are delivered, the tasks or jobs to be outsourced, or how employers and workers conduct their search processes. In this paper, we focus on this last aspect of the Internet's effect on labor markets: online job searches. Internet job search offers several advantages over traditional methods, such as print advertisements or public employment agencies. For jobseekers, it reduces search and application costs, allows access to up-to-date vacancy information, and improves communication with potential employers (Kuhn & Skuterud, 2004). Similarly, employers benefit from lower search costs of candidates, faster recruiting, larger and more diverse pool of applicants, and more detailed information about applicants (Kuhn, 2000). Perhaps not surprisingly, and following a rapid adoption in the last two decades, the Internet has emerged as an important tool among labor market participants, and nowadays individuals and firms are increasingly using it to conduct their search processes. In parallel, public administrators have also recognized the key role of the Internet to foster job creation in the aftermath of the global economic crisis. For example, US, European and Spanish Governments have set out public initiatives based on an intensive and efficient use of ICTs, most notably the Internet, to reboot the economy and become a catalyst for job creation (European Commission, 2010; NTIA, 2013; Spanish Government, Contents lists available at ScienceDirect URL: www.elsevier.com/locate/telpol Telecommunications Policy http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2014.09.006 0308-5961/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ☆ The authors are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments and suggestions received on the previous version of this paper. We would also like to acknowledge comments received by Ricardo Alonso and Rocío Sánchez Mangas. n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 914887573. E-mail addresses: r.camposg@alumnos.urjc.es (R. Campos), maria.arrazola@urjc.es (M. Arrazola), jose.dehevia@urjc.es (J. de Hevia). Telecommunications Policy 38 (2014) 1095–1116