Back to Business and (Re)employing Workers? Labor Market Activity During State COVID-19 Reopenings

Cheng, Wei; Carlin, Patrick; Carroll, Joanna; Gupta, Sumedha; Rojas, Felipe Lozano; Montenovo, Laura; Nguyễn, Thủy; Schmutte, Ian M.; Scrivner, Olga; Simon, Kosali; Wing, Coady; Weinberg, Bruce A.

doi:10.3386/w27419

Cited by 42 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This could have led to an undercount of point-in-time unemployment levels. Surprisingly, research suggests that workers who remained employed during the early epidemic did not experience much change in hours worked or earnings Cheng et al (2020); .…”

Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since April, there have been reductions in the number of new unemployment claims and signs of improved labor market performance. Studies note that the official state reopenings have contributed a modest 0-4% increase in employment; decreases in job loss among those employed were smaller (Cheng et al, 2020;Chetty et al, 2020). Moreover, majority of those who were reemployed appear to have returned to their previous employment, with the rate of reemployment decreasing with time since job loss.…”

Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, majority of those who were reemployed appear to have returned to their previous employment, with the rate of reemployment decreasing with time since job loss. Lastly, the groups that had the highest unemployment rates in April -Hispanic and Black workers, youngest and oldest workers, and women -have had the lowest reemployment rates (Cheng et al, 2020). These racial and ethnic labor market disparities are important because they add to already existing disparities in the extent of the health tolls of COVID-19 Benitez et al…”

Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review

Gupta

Simon

Wing

2020

Self Cite

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For much of 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic upended social and economic life globally. In an effort to reduce COVID-19 risks in the U.S., state and local governments issued many recommendations and regulations to induce social distancing, adding to voluntary reductions in interpersonal contact. The responses to the epidemic helped contain spread, but also lead to high unintended societal costs. In the summer months, states took steps to revive the economy and lift social distancing regulations. However, as many epidemiologists expected, the scale of the epidemic has expanded very rapidly in the fall. In the week of October 14, the US generated around 57,000 new COVID-19 cases and 700 deaths each day. By November 15, the country was generating about 151,000 new cases and 1,200 deaths per day. These rapid increases in cases and deaths raise concerns about the capacity of local healthcare systems around the country. State governments are once again facing difficult choices about whether and how to use policies to address the spread of the virus. The incoming Biden-Harris administration faces an important challenge in trying to manage the epidemic as well as a large scale vaccination campaign. Although the epidemic is less than a year old, it has generated a huge volume of research by economists, epidemiologists, and others. This body of work may help inform policy decisions facing society in the coming months. In this paper, we make five broad contributions. First, we provide a concise review of economic and social science research on mobility patterns, labor market outcomes, consumer behavior, and population health during the first phase of the epidemic. Second, we sketch a simple microeconomic model that may be useful considering the determinants of social distancing and the role of different policy instruments in promoting distancing. Third, we present a simple typology of the policies that were used at the state and county levels during the closure and reopening phases of the epidemic in the U.S.. Fourth, we review a collection of new data sources that have played an important role in monitoring and analyzing population behavior this year. Fifth, we present results from event study regressions that try to disentangle private vs. policyinduced changes in mobility patterns during the early part of the epidemic.

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Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Labor Market Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review

Gupta

Simon

Wing

2020

Self Cite

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“…This should include considering critical gender differences to meet As economies open up and start rehiring, policy makers need to closely monitor the situation for women's unemployment and reemployment. In the US, data from April to May show that women had higher unemployment rates and lower reemployment rates (Cheng et al 2020).…”

Section: Policy Implications For Developing Countries and Adb's Rolementioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 is No Excuse to Regress on Gender Equality

Park¹,

Inocencio²

2020

ADB Briefs

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Given the significant gendered effects of COVID-19, governments need to adopt the following specific actions: • Enhance social services and health protection. • Provide conditional or unconditional cash transfers and food assistance. • Provide targeted support for the most marginalized girls and boys. • Create gender-responsive education. • Address different forms of gender-based violence. • Narrow gender gaps through skills development and job creation. • Pursue gender-responsive labor market policies. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis threatens to reverse hard-won gains in gender equality, further exposing women's vulnerabilities based on their precrisis social, economic, and political situations. Understanding the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic can guide policy makers as they pursue gender-responsive policy making and budgeting. This can ensure a response mindful of the needs of women and girls that addresses existing and emerging gender inequalities and challenges. In this context, this policy brief provides a set of recommendations for gender-responsive policies and sector-specific strategies in response to the pandemic. ThE UNEVEN ImPaCT Of COVID-19 ON WOmEN'S LIVES aND LIVELIhOODS Cases of COVID-19 are still rising globally, with nearly 46 million cases and 1.2 million deaths as of 1 November 2020. 2 COVID-19 affects men and women differently in several ways. Early data across several countries show that men tend to be more susceptible than women, and older people more susceptible to the disease regardless of gender (Mueller, McNamara, and Sinclair 2020). Figure 1 shows that the number of cases is higher for men than women, except for those aged 85 and up. Interestingly, however, survey data from eight Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from March and April 2020 showed that men were less likely to view COVID-19 as serious, and consequently less likely to agree with public policy measures such as closing schools and nonessential businesses, and less likely to follow social distancing rules (Galasso et al. 2020). 3 1 The authors would like to thank Tsolmon Begzsuren, Samantha Hung, Keiko Nowacka, and Yasuyuki Sawada for their review and very useful and valuable comments on various technical issues examined in this paper.

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“…However, they note that secular time trends explain the remaining bulk of the variation and that the effect of policy is somewhat smaller in the reopening phases than during the shutdown phase. Cheng and others (2020) examine regional reopenings in the United States and find that work-related mobility shows clear increases in levels and/or trends around reopening announcements 2 . Glaeser and others (2020) develop a model of learning by deregulation, which predicts that easing restrictions can signal that going out has become safer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exiting from Lockdowns

Franks¹,

Gruss²,

Mulas‐Granados³

et al. 2020

IMF Working Papers

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European authorities introduced stringent lockdown measures in early 2020 to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. As the first wave of infection curves flattened and the outbreak appeared controlled, most countries started to reopen their economies albeit using diverse strategies. This paper introduces a novel daily database of sectoral reopening measures in Europe during the first-wave and documents that country plans differed significantly in terms of timing, pace, and sequencing of sectoral reopening measures. We then show that reopenings led to a recovery in mobility—a proxy for economic activity—but at the cost of somewhat higher infections. However, the experience with reopening reveals some original dimensions of this trade-off. First, the increase in COVID-19 infections after reopening appears less severe in fatality rates. Second, a given reopening step is associated with a worse reinfection outcome in countries that started reopening earlier on the infection curve or that opened all sectors at a fast pace in a relatively short time. Finally, while opening measures tend to have an amplification effect on subsequent cases when a large fraction of the economy is already open, this effect appears heterogenous across sectors.

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Back to Business and (Re)employing Workers? Labor Market Activity During State COVID-19 Reopenings

Cited by 42 publications

References 24 publications

Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review

Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review

COVID-19 is No Excuse to Regress on Gender Equality

Exiting from Lockdowns

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