scholarly journals Labor Market Trends and Outcomes: What Has Changed since the Great Recession?

2021 ◽  
Vol 695 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-69
Author(s):  
Erica L. Groshen ◽  
Harry J. Holzer
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
High School Education ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Market Trends ◽  
Early Effects

This article describes 40 years of trends in wages and labor force participation for the “working class”—workers with a high school education or less—compared to workers with a college degree or more. We compare cyclical peaks over the entire period 1979 to 2019, with particular focus on the Great Recession (2007–2010) and recovery (2010–2019). We also present results by gender and race. We find real wage growth for all workers in the recovery from the Great Recession, but not enough to change the long-term trends of growing inequality and stagnant wages for the less educated. We also find that labor force participation continued to decline for the less educated, even during the recovery. Gaps between whites and Blacks grew, while Hispanics and Asians made more progress than Blacks. We consider various explanations for these findings and show that the early effects of the 2020 to 2021 pandemic recession hurt less-educated workers and those of color more than anyone else.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Great Recession on Mothers’ Employment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liana Christin Landivar
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Job Experience ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Married Mothers ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
Tight Labor Market ◽  
The Impact

In all recent recessions, men’s unemployment has been higher than women’s because they are disproportionately likely to be concentrated in cyclical industries such as construction and manufacturing. This recession has been particularly severe for men and women, as they are both experiencing unprecedented levels of long-term unemployment, along with declining wages. Because of the severity of the recession, married mothers of young children may have increased their labor force participation to compensate for their husbands’ under- or unemployment. Using 2006 and 2010 American Community Survey data, I show that married mothers’ increased labor force participation likely occurred in households that were less economically disadvantaged prior to the recession. The demand for married women’s employment should have been stronger in households where men were employed in industries that were hard-hit by the recession. However, employment rates were lower among women married to men with lower earnings who are or were employed in construction and agriculture, the two industries with the highest levels of unemployment. Because their wives were less likely to be employed prior to the start of the recession, they may have been at a stronger disadvantage in obtaining employment in a tight labor market without recent job experience.

scholarly journals Estimating Hysteresis Effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (058) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Francesco Furlanetto ◽  
◽  
Antoine Lepetit ◽  
Ørjan Robstad ◽  
Juan Rubio-Ramírez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demand Shocks ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Permanent Effect

In this paper we identify demand shocks that can have a permanent effect on output through hysteresis effects. We call these shocks permanent demand shocks. They are found to be quantitatively important in the United States, in particular when the Great Recession is included in the sample. Recessions driven by permanent demand shocks lead to a permanent decline in employment and investment, while output per worker is largely unaffected. We find strong evidence that hysteresis transmits through a rise in long-term unemployment and a decline in labor force participation and disproportionately affects the least productive workers.

The Great Recession and Economic Outcomes for Indigenous Peoples in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 695 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Randall Akee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Recovery Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
The Great Recession

This article examines the earnings and employment experience of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) residing in the United States during and after the Great Recession. I compare these populations to non-Hispanic whites over the same time period with respect to median earnings and inequality, labor force participation rates, earnings by location, educational attainment, and occupational status. I find that the AIAN population has the lowest median earnings and highest level of earnings inequality. NHPI and AIAN experience a sharp increase in earnings inequality over the Great Recession and AIAN have a pronounced drop in labor force participation; these inequality measures remained elevated and stable over the recovery period especially for the AIAN population. Indigenous peoples employed in food services occupations experienced the least amount of earnings decline over the Great Recession, while those employed in construction and sales experienced larger declines. Labor force participation rates dropped most dramatically for the AIAN population over the Great Recession and remained at a new lower level in the recovery period. The analysis shows that there are stark differences across time, space, and occupation for these groups.

scholarly journals Flow Origins of Labor Force Participation Fluctuations

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 461-464
Author(s):  
Michael Elsby ◽  
Bart Hobijn ◽  
Fatih Karahan ◽  
Gizem Kos¸ar ◽  
Ays¸egül S¸ahin
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Participation Rate ◽  
Labor Force Participation Rate ◽  
Entry And Exit ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
State Flow ◽  
Labor Force Exit ◽  
Flow Decomposition

We investigate the origins of cyclical and trend movements in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) using a three-state flow decomposition. The procyclicality of LFPR can be traced to cyclical flows between employment and unemployment. By contrast, labor force entry and exit explain virtually all of the trend movements. Among men, rising labor force exit rates account for two-thirds of the trend decline in male LFPR since the 1990s. For women, trend increases in female LFPR during the 1990s were dominated by declining exit rates, while the trend decline since the Great Recession can be traced to declining entry rates.

scholarly journals Short-Time Work and Unemployment in and after the Great Recession

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kopp ◽  
Michael Siegenthaler
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Short Time

Abstract We study whether the Swiss short-time work (STW) program reduced unemployment in and after the Great Recession using quarterly establishment-level panel data linking administrative data sources. We compare changes in layoffs into unemployment, employment, and establishment survival between establishments that applied successfully and establishments that applied unsuccessfully for STW at cantonal employment agencies. The unsuccessful establishments provide a valid counterfactual for the successful ones because cantonal approval practices are partly idiosyncratic. We find that STW increases establishment survival and prevents rather than postpones dismissals. The 7,857 establishments treated in 2009 would have dismissed 20,600 additional workers into unemployment (0.47% of the labor force) until 2012. Most workers would have been dismissed in the quarters immediately following the application, and more than a third would have become long-term unemployed. The savings on unemployment benefits may have compensated for the spending on STW benefits.

Trends in Black–White Employment Gaps Since the Great Recession

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-269
Author(s):  
Thomas Masterson
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Black People ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Black Employment ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Employment Gaps ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Population Rate

The Great Recession had a devastating impact on labor force participation and employment. This impact was not unlike other recessions, except in size. The recovery, however, has been unusual not so much for its sluggishness but for the unusual pattern of recovery in employment by race. The Black employment–population rate has increased since bottoming out in 2010 while the White employment–population rate has remained flat. We examine trends in labor force participation and employment by race, sex, and age and determine that the explanation is a combination of an aging White population and an increase in labor force participation among younger Black people. We estimate the likelihood of labor force participation and employment among young men and women to control for confounding factors, such as changes in educational characteristics. We then decompose the gaps among groups and the changes over time in labor force participation using an Oaxaca–Blinder-like technique for nonlinear estimations. We find that much smaller negative impacts of characteristics and greater returns to characteristics among young Black men and women than among young White men and women explain the observed trends.

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