Soft skills and Youth Employment: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh

Developing countries are characterized by a sizable youth demographic entering the job market annually and employers identify a lack of soft skills as a key mismatch. To address this gap, we evaluate a 1-month job-market oriented soft-skills program, targeting soon-to-graduate youth in Bangladeshi universities. Applicants to the program were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups over 15 training sessions that were implemented sequentially over a year. Treated students work 4-5.5 percentage points more immediately after the intervention, driven by increasing part-time work and with female students benefiting more. After a year, employment is still 3-4.6 percentage points higher for treated students. We conclude that these overall effects are underestimated, as students take longer than anticipated to graduate. The study suggests that employment increases are driven by improvements in both inter-personal and intra-personal soft-skills, and that soft skills can help during this transitional period. The index of soft skills remains higher for treated students by 0.13 SD a year after training. Additionally, the program is extremely cost-effective at about 3 USD per participant and scalable by incorporating hybrid instruction.