The U.S. Labor Market during the Beginning of the Pandemic Recession / Tomaz Cajner, Leland D. Crane, Ryan A. Decker, John Grigsby, Adrian Hamins-Puertolas, Erik Hurst, Christopher Kurz, Ahu Yildirmaz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cajner, Tomaz.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Crane, Leland D.

Decker, Ryan A.

Grigsby, John.

Hamins-Puertolas, Adrian.

Hurst, Erik.

Kurz, Christopher.

Yildirmaz, Ahu.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27159.

NBER working paper series no. w27159

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

Using weekly administrative payroll data from the largest U.S. payroll processing company, we measure the evolution of the U.S. labor market during the first four months of the global COVID-19 pandemic. After aggregate employment fell by 21 percent through late-April, employment rebounded somewhat through late-June. The re-opening of temporarily shuttered businesses contributed significantly to the employment rebound, particularly for smaller businesses. We show that worker recall has been an important component of recent employment gains for both re-opening and continuing businesses. Employment losses have been concentrated disproportionately among lower wage workers; as of late June employment for workers in the lowest wage quintile was still 20 percent lower relative to mid-February levels. As a result, average base wages increased between February and June, though this increase arose entirely through a composition effect. Finally, we document that businesses have cut nominal wages for almost 7 million workers while forgoing regularly scheduled wage increases for many others.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2020.