Working Paper Revision
The Effect of COVID Immigration Restrictions on Post-Pandemic Labor Market Tightness
Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were unprecedented shortfalls in immigration. Concurrently, as the economy recovered, the labor market became tight, with the number of vacancies per unemployed worker reaching two, more than twice its pre-pandemic average. In this article, we investigate whether these two trends are connected. We find no evidence to support the hypothesis that the immigration shortfalls caused the tight labor market, for two main reasons. First, while the immigration deficit peaked at about two million workers, this number had largely recovered by February 2022, just as labor market tightness was increasing. Second, we do not find that states, cities, or industries most impacted by immigration restrictions also experienced larger increases in labor market tightness.
Keywords: immigration; labor market tightness; COVID-19; wages;
JEL Classification: J20; J40; J61;
https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2024.003
Status: Published in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review
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Bibliographic Information
Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Part of Series: Working Papers
Publication Date: 2024-11-20
Number: 2024-003
Note: Publisher DOI: https://doi.org/10.20955/r.2024.11
Related Works
- Working Paper Revision (2024-11-20) : You are here.
- Working Paper Original (2024-01) : Where Did the Workers Go? The Effect of COVID Immigration Restrictions on Post-Pandemic Labor Market Tightness