Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215888 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 524
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
In this ongoing project, we examine the short-term consequences of COVID- 19 on employment and wages in the United States. Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we document the impact of COVID-19 at the national-level using a simple difference and test whether states with relatively more confirmed cases/deaths were more affected. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 in- creased the unemployment rate, decreased hours of work and labor force participation and had no significant impacts on wages. The negative impacts on labor market outcomes are larger for men, younger workers, Hispanics and less-educated workers. This suggest that COVID-19 increases labor market inequalities. We also investigate whether the economic consequences of this pandemic were larger for certain occupations. We built three indexes using ACS and O*NET data: workers relatively more exposed to disease, work- ers that work with proximity to coworkers and workers who can easily work remotely. Our estimates suggest that individuals in occupations working in proximity to others are more affected while occupations able to work remotely are less affected. We also find that occupations classified as more exposed to disease are less affected, possibly due to the large number of essential workers in these occupations.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
unemployment
wages
remote work
exposure to disease
JEL: 
I15
I18
J21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.