{"podcast":{"title":"VoxTalks Economics","slug":"voxtalks-economics-504930","podcast_index_feed_id":504930,"rss_url":"https://audioboom.com/channels/4966228.rss","website_url":"https://audioboom.com/channels/4966228","image_url":"https://audioboom.com/i/38349944.png","author":"VoxTalks","episode_count":471,"summary":"Learn about groundbreaking new research, commentary and policy ideas from the world's leading economists. Presented by Tim Phillips.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T20:21:07.540325+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930"},"episode":{"title":"S9 Ep36: Helping the over-50s find work","slug":"s9-ep36-helping-the-over-50s-find-work","published_at":"2026-07-01T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930/s9-ep36-helping-the-over-50s-find-work","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930","url":"https://audioboom.com/posts/8922899","audio_url":"https://audioboom.com/posts/8922899.mp3?modified=1782892522&sid=4966228&source=rss","summary":"Lose your job at 25 and someone will help you find another. Lose it at 55 and the talk quietly turns to how you might wind down towards retirement. Policymakers tend to assume job search training works for the young and not the old, so they rarely spend money trying. Bas van der Klaauw (Tinbergen Institute) thinks they got that wrong. In this week's VoxTalks Economics, he tells Tim Phillips about a Dutch experiment that put older unemployed workers through an intensive programme built on one idea: teach people over 50 to find work the way younger workers already do, by working their social network. Participants left unemployment faster, there was a 10% increase in job finding, and the savings in benefits more than covered the cost. The catch: it helped the better educated most and was tested in a recession. Will it work just as well in today's labour market, where even the young and well-educated are struggling to find good jobs? The research behind this episode: de Groot, Nynke, and Bas van der Klaauw. 2026. \"A Randomized Experiment on Improving Job Search Skills of Older Unemployed Workers.\" CEPR Discussion Paper 21464. (Gated) To cite this episode: Phillips, Tim, and Bas van der Klaauw. 2026. “Helping the over-50s find work.” VoxTalks Economics (podcast). About the guest Bas van der Klaauw is professor of economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and director of the Tinbergen Institute. An applied microeconometrician, he uses causal methods to study labour markets, education and health, and is a research fellow of CEPR and IZA. His work on unemployment insurance, active labour market programmes and job search includes several field experiments run with the Dutch benefits administration. The paper is co-authored with Nynke de Groot, an economist at the National Healt…","meta_description":"Lose your job at 25 and someone will help you find another. Lose it at 55 and the talk quietly turns to how you might wind down towards retirement. Policy…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1153,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/voxtalks-economics-504930/episodes/s9-ep36-helping-the-over-50s-find-work/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930/s9-ep36-helping-the-over-50s-find-work.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}