Questions and answers about
the economy.

Labor market flows and the Covid-19 economy

I examine labor market flows in the CPS through March 2020. Although there was a dramatic single month increase in the unemployment rate and exit rate from employment, most cyclical flows (hiring, employer-to-employer flows, quits) have not yet changed substantially. I show that increases in flows to non-employment are concentrated in a few sectors (hospitality, other services, and construction), suggesting that the economic slow-down was not yet widespread in March of 2020. However, I show that within-individual hours decreased in March 2020, and this reduction was broad based across industries, occupations, and demographic groups. Note: this project will be updated each month as new data becomes available.

Lead investigator:

Eliza Forsythe

Affiliation:

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Primary topic:

Jobs, work, pay & benefits

Region of data collection:

North America

Country of data collection

USA

Status of data collection

In Progress

Type of data being collected:

Publicly available

Unit of real-time data collection

Individual

Start date

12/2018

Frequency

Monthly

Read the results from this research