Using data from the youth employment survey carried out by the National Institute of
Statistics in the city of Yaoundé, Cameroon in 2008, this paper addresses the issue of the
relevance of the use of informal contacts (friends and relatives) in the process of exiting
unemployment. After empirical investigations, we are able to state that while the use of
friends and relatives is the most used job search strategy, there is no strong evidence of its
effectiveness in the process of getting out of unemployment.