The city of Boston has been running a youth summer jobs program since the 1990s. But despite having the infrastructure in place for teens to get jobs, the city — like many other places across the U.S. — was still seeing a decline in summer employment for young people.
To improve the city’s ability to run its employment program well, officials focused on enhancing the end-to-end experience for a young person trying to find and secure a summer job.
The city also turned to SuccessLink to improve job placement and participation. The online tool allows 3,300 teenagers in Boston to register for summer jobs and uses analytics to match them with meaningful work in their communities. SuccessLink uses the Gale-Shapley algorithm, which was originally used for medical residency placements.
This case study highlights the challenges the program faced and how the city used analytics to address them. We also highlight key stats and takeaways.
