Caseworkers are the main human resources used to provide social services. This paper asks whether and how much caseworkers matter for the outcomes of unemployed individuals. Using large-scale administrative data, I exploit exogenous variation in unplanned absences among Swiss unemployment insurance caseworkers. I find that individuals who lose a meeting with their caseworker stay unemployed 5% longer. Results show large heterogeneity in the personal impact of caseworkers: the effect of a forgone meeting is zero for caseworkers in the lower half of the productivity distribution but is more than twice the average effect for caseworkers in the upper half.

中文翻译：

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个案工作者在失业保险中的作用：无计划缺勤的证据

个案工作者是用于提供社会服务的主要人力资源。本文询问个案工作者是否对失业个人产生影响，以及影响多少。利用大规模的行政数据，我利用了瑞士失业保险案例工作人员计划外缺勤的外在变化。我发现失去与个案工作者开会的人的失业时间长5％。结果表明，案例工作者的个人影响存在很大的异质性：在生产力分布的下半部分，被放弃的会议对案例工作者的影响为零，但在上半部分中，案例会议的平均影响是后者的两倍以上。