Covid-19 Labor Market

Authors:     Alex Bick, Adam Blandin

Publication:     Review of Economic Dynamics (2023)

Media / Coverage:     ABC Action News, Politico, Bloomberg, Fortune, LA Times 

Data

Abstract:     Economists have recently begun using independent online surveys to collect national labor market data. Questions remain over the quality of such data. This paper provides an approach to address these concerns. Our case study is the Real-Time Population Survey (RPS), a novel online survey of the US built around the Current Population Survey (CPS). The RPS replicates core components of the CPS, ensuring comparable measures that allow us to weight and rigorously validate our results using a high-quality benchmark. At the same time, special questions in the RPS yield novel information regarding employer reallocation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We document that 26% of pre-pandemic workers were working for a new employer one year into the COVID-19 outbreak in the US, at least double the rate of any previous episode in the past quarter century. Our discussion contains practical suggestions for the design of novel labor market surveys and highlights other promising applications of our methodology.

Authors:     Alex Bick, Adam Blandin, Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln

Publication:     Jackson Hole Policy Symposium (2023)

Media / Coverage:     Reuters 

Abstract:     We argue that hours per worker are at least as important as employment rates when it comes to projecting future labor market trends and potential output. Based on data for 18 European countries and the US over the two decades prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we document that hours worked per person fell in most countries, driven by a uniform decline in hours per worker. By contrast, employment rates increased in most countries. We present a stylized model in which a decrease in the fixed costs of working rationalizes the pattern of decreasing hours per worker and increasing employment rates. Although the COVID-19 pandemic increased the fixed costs of working in the short run, recent survey evidence from the US suggests that changing work arrangements since the pandemic had the opposite effect and are likely to persist into the future.

Authors:     Alex Bick, Adam Blandin

Labor Market Reports:

• Final Report: Wave 22 (June 18, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 21st draft: Wave 21 (May 21, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 20th draft: Wave 20 (April 23, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

  • Addendum explaining update of time-series through the week of April 11-17 (April 23, 2021)

• 19th draft: Wave 19 (March 19, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 18th draft: Wave 18 (February 19, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 17th draft: Wave 17 (January 22, 2021; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 16th draft: Wave 16 (December 18, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 15th draft: Wave 15 (November 20, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 14th draft: Wave 14 (October 23, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 13th draft: Wave 13 (October 9, 2020; see also our  Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 12th draft: Wave 12 (September 18, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

  • Addendum explaining update of time-series through the week of Sep 6-12 (October 1, 2020)

• 11th draft: Wave 11 (September 4, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 10th draft: Wave 10 (August 21, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 9th draft: Wave 9 (August 7, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 8th draft: Wave 8 (July 24, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 7th draft: Wave 7 (July 2, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 6th draft: Wave 6 (June 19, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 5th draft: Wave 5 (June 5, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 4th draft: Wave 4 (May 22, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 3rd draft: Wave 3 (May 11, 2020; see also our Dallas Fed Blog Post)

• 2nd draft: Wave 2 (initial draft April 24, 2020; updated April 29, 2020: facts for core working ages (25-54) included in Appendix, see also our VoxEU summary)

• 1st draft: Wave 1 (April 15, 2020)

Media / Coverage: 

2021

• July 10th: Business Insider, There's a bidding war for jobseekers, and it's getting crazier by the day

• May 27th: Dallas Fed Economics, The Labor Market May Be Tighter than the Level of Employment Suggests 

• May 22th: Reuters, Dallas Fed survey points to possible weak May job growth, Fed officials, new data, start lowering expectations for U.S. jobs in May

• May 14th: Bloomberg, One in Three U.S. Workers Changed or Lost Jobs in Past Year (See also: LA Times, Fortune)

• May 14th: Politico, America’s vanishing workforce

• Mar 31st: Forbes, The Economy Continues To Gain Strength In 12 Charts 

• Feb 20th: Business Insider, 'Hybrid work' is going to cleave America in yet another way 

• Feb 18th: Newsday, When every day is casual Friday, some businesses suffer 

• Feb 3rd: Richmond Magazine, Real-time Economics 

   2020

• Oct  23rd: Politico, How corona virus is reshaping America's job market 

• Sep 10th: Courthouse News Service, Last Week, 1.6 Million People Claimed Jobless Benefits — 10 Times More Than in All of 2019 

• Sep 2nd: The Boston Globe, How many people are working from home? Not as many as you might think 

• Aug 24th: POLITICO, Economy hurting after Congress fails to act on stimulus 

• Aug 24th: Forbes, Taxes, VPNs and Office Hours, The Ultimate Forbes Guide to Working from Home

• Jul 24th: Wall Street Journal, States Brace for Changes to $600-a-Week Unemployment Benefits 

• Jul 23rd: Testimony of Steven J. Davis before the Committee on Financial Services, United States House of Representatives 

• Jul 20th: NBC News, Who's hiring during the pandemic?

• Jul 2nd: NBC News, U.S. economy gains 4.8 million jobs, unemployment rate falls to 11.1 percent

• May 23rd: Wall Street Journal, The Job Market’s Long Road Back 

• May 22nd: Bloomberg, JP Morgan Sees U.S. Jobless Rate at Least 10% Through Early 2021 

• May 20th: Wall Street Journal, What Unemployment Claims Tell Us About Coronavirus Job Losses

• May  6th: AP News, April jobs data to show epic losses and soaring unemployment

• May  3rd: Wall Street Journal, April Jobs Report Likely to Show Highest Unemployment Rate on Record

• Apr 30th: The New York Times, Stymied in Seeking Benefits, Millions of Unemployed Go Uncounted

• Apr 30th: Wall Street Journal, Over 3.8 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week as States Struggle With Coronavirus Claims Surge

• Apr 30th: Forbes, We Have At Least 23% Unemployment And Maybe More Than The Great Depression

• Apr 30th: Bloomberg Opinion, The Many New Indicators of an Epic Job Collapse

• Apr 30th: Slate, We’re Failing to Rescue the Economy

• Apr 30th: National Review, How Bad Is the Job Market?

• Apr 30th: Business Insider, States keep undercounting unemployment due to bad tech — the real numbers are even more shocking

• Apr 30th: AP News, 30 million have sought US unemployment aid since virus hit

• Apr 23th: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pandemic claimed 1.5 million Pennsylvania jobs, but forecaster sees a summer ‘pop’ in rehiring

• Apr 17th: Wall Street Journal, Who Pays For This?

• Apr 17th: The Washington Post, U.S. now has 22 million unemployed, wiping out a decade of job gains

• Apr 17th: Virginia Business, Survey shows 24M jobs lost since labor market stats last released

• Apr 16th: Star Tribune, Job losses hitting nearly 20% of Minnesota workers

• Apr 16th: Arizona Business Magazine, Unemployment rate jumps from 4.5% to 20.2%, ASU analysis shows

*Between May 2020 and July 2021, the Real-Time Population Survey was conducted in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The results from the Real-Time Population Survey do not represent official forecasts or views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, its President, the Federal Reserve System, or the Federal Open Market Committee.