Earnings losses of displaced workers in times of crisis

Abstract

We utilize data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to study how the earnings losses experienced by displaced workers vary in times of economic crisis. Relative to an economy that operates at full potential, our results show that a 1% increase in the real gross domestic product gap observed at the time of displacement is associated with an additional increase in the estimated earnings losses experienced by displaced workers of approximately 4.3% in the year immediately following displacement, and with similar increases in the estimated losses for up to 5 years after.