Tracking the Labor Market Spread of the Coronavirus Shock
Nick Bunker: May 2020 Jobs Day Preview: Tracking the Spread of the Coronavirus Shock https://www.hiringlab.org/2020/06/02/may-2020-jobs-day-preview/#sendgrid_mc_email_subscribe: ‘The coronavirus has devastated the US economy, leading to the destruction of over 21 million payroll jobs since February.... The concentration of job losses so far is unsurprising, with the leisure and hospitality sector seeing total employment drop by almost 50%. Employment in the utilities sector has barely fallen, losing less than 1% of jobs. If the cumulative employment drop starts to pile up in utilities or other indirectly affected sectors, that could mean that more of the aggregate job loss is due to a systematic, economy-wide shock rather than a sector-specific one. Cumulative job loss will also put the eventual jobs recovery in a fuller context.... Hopes for a V-shaped recovery were already fleeting, but if more and more employers are shedding jobs, they might be gone for good. Elsewhere in the report, I’ll be looking for the answers to these questions: * Will unemployment due to reasons other than temporary layoff start to rise, as job loss becomes permanent? * Will employers continue to reduce work hours and shift more workers to involuntary part-time work? * How much further will the drop in the labor force participation rate hold down the rise in the unemployment rate?…
#forecasting #labormarket #macro #noted #2020-06-02
