New Estimates of the Risk and Duration of Registered Unemployment in Urban Russia

This paper examines whether deregistration from the employment office decreases unemployment duration. The study is based on Russian individual-level data from the Public Employment Office of Rostov-on-Don combined with information from the 2000 household survey. Using a proportional hazard model, I find a significant excess in job finding rates following employment office deregistration. The predicted risk of getting a job is non-monotonic and tends to decrease at longer duration intervals. An important finding is that only 29% of the unemployed obtained a job simultaneously with deregistering from the Public Employment Office. Others continued to search for job on their own.