Questions and answers about
the economy.

The heterogeneous labor market impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic

We study the distributional consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on employment. Using CPS data on stocks and flows, we show that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. Although employment losses have been widespread, they have been substantially larger in lower-paying occupations and industries. Individuals from disadvantaged groups, such as Hispanics, younger workers, those with lower levels of education, and women, have suffered both larger increases in job losses and larger decreases in hiring rates. Occupation and industry affiliation can explain only part of the increased job losses among these groups.

Lead investigator:

Matias Cortes

Affiliation:

York University

Primary topic:

Jobs, work, pay & benefits

Region of data collection:

North America

Country of data collection

USA

Status of data collection

Complete

Type of data being collected:

Publicly available

Unit of real-time data collection

Individual

Start date

1/2015

End date

4/2020

Frequency

Monthly

Read the results from this research Get the questions used in this research