Measuring racial bias in employment services in Colombia

In this paper, we document de facto, implicit, and explicit racial biases within the public employment service in Colombia. By combining administrative data about job seekers and job openings with direct surveys to job counselors, including a Race Implicit Association Test, we measure different types of racial bias. We find that while job counselors do not self-report biased attitudes against Afro-descendant individuals, the majority exhibit high levels of implicit bias, which also correlates strongly with observed lower referral rates of Afro-descendants to job openings. In addition, we provide information to a randomized group of job counselors about their implicit bias and test if this information changes their referral behavior. While we demonstrate that the implicit bias of counselors contributes to racial gaps in labor outcomes, we do not find that providing feedback on this unconscious bias changes referral behavior. • We document implicit, explicit, and de facto bias against Afro-descendants in job services. • Counselors have high implicit bias but do not report bias against Afro-descendant job seekers. • Afro-descendants are 15% less likely to be referred and 23% less likely to be hired once referred. • Implicit bias correlates with counselors’ actions and contributes to racial gaps in employment. • Information about job counselors’ implicit bias does not change referral behavior.