scholarly journals Black Employment Trends since the Great Recession

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Masterson
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amar Mann ◽  
Tian Luo ◽  
Richard Holden

The temporary help services (THS) industry has grown in absolute and relative terms since 1990, and also since the Great Recession, from 2008–18, the period covered in this article. The THS employment levels have fluctuated in advance of broader economic changes, providing a method for employers to scale employment up and down to meet changing conditions. As the economy has changed, so too has the deployment of THS employees. Trends in the THS industry follow overall employment trends and also shine a light on changes in the regional, occupational, and industrial utilization of THS employees. These trends in THS employment underscore the key features of the labor market that underlie the overall employment trends. THS employment is, in many ways, a barometer for the employment changes in the U.S. economy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-269
Author(s):  
Thomas Masterson

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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