From Hiring Difficulties to Labor Hoarding?

Leduc, Sylvain; Oliveira, Luiz E.

Journal Article

From Hiring Difficulties to Labor Hoarding?

Abstract: Businesses faced challenges finding enough workers to fill job openings early in the pandemic recovery. One view suggests that, as economic growth moderated relative to the strong bounceback in economic activity in the early pandemic recovery period, some businesses started hoarding labor to avoid the potential difficulty of recruiting workers in the future. Evidence from Okun’s law—which theorizes that economic output tends to fall as unemployment rises—is consistent with this view. The results suggest that businesses partly adjusted production by changing the number of hours for current workers rather than varying employee numbers.

Keywords: pandemic; covid19; Okun's Law; economic activity; hiring; labor;