Search Results
Briefing
Human Capital Investment: Would Higher-Order Skills Help Disconnected Youth?
Human capital investments remain cost-effective well into young adulthood.A multidimensional approach to human capital development emphasizes developing self-reflection abilities and strategic thinking skills alongside traditional academic knowledge.Higher-order skills — like teamwork, critical thinking and self-control — offer high returns for disconnected youth and are well-compensated in the labor market.
Briefing
Do Federal Layoffs Have Ripple Effects on Local Economies?
We investigate the extent to which low-skill job openings have accompanied reductions in the federal workforce.As of May 31, 2025, we find small effects.Our findings suggest that the local demand channel identified in the economic literature — whereby high-skill jobs sustain low-skill ones via high-skill workers' demand for nontradable goods and services — is rather muted so far for federal jobs.
Briefing
Public and Private Labor Market Data: Insights From the Government Shutdown
Private and public data are complements, not substitutes: Private sources offer speed and granularity, while government surveys provide representative benchmarks.Different data sources can measure similar but subtlety different things. For instance, JOLTS, ADP, RPLS and Gusto all measure "employment" but define it in different ways.These differences can lead to very different measurements, illustrated by two private data sources diverging by 100,000 jobs during the shutdown.
Briefing
Business Cycles: Is the Current Economic Environment Different?
Post-1988 unemployment cycles are significantly longer than earlier ones: 18.4 months for pre-1988 cycles, and 30 months for post-1988.The current cycle has been especially gradual, with unemployment rising steadily for 33 months — the longest on record without a recession following.In particular, the current cycle is atypical in that the sustained increase in unemployment occurs while GDP growth is, instead, strongly positive.
Briefing
What Unemployment Insurance Claims Can — and Cannot — Tell Us
Fewer people are losing their jobs: New claims for unemployment benefits are down, while the workforce covered by unemployment benefits has grown by 13 million since 2022.People aren't leaving the benefit rolls faster: The weekly exit rate has been flat near 11.7 percent since early 2025 — which is a quarter below its 2022 level — and a typical insurance spell now runs 8.2 weeks versus 6.5 weeks in 2022.The recent decline in continuing claims is not necessarily evidence of a recovering labor market. It is explained almost entirely by fewer arrivals, not faster exits. And the share of ...
Briefing
The Ins and Outs of Long-Term Unemployment
The recent rise in long-term unemployment is almost entirely accounted for by a decline in unemployment outflow rates, especially the rate at which unemployed workers find jobs.Inflows into unemployment from employment remain low by historical standards, indicating that the rise is not driven by increased layoffs.Outflow rates have fallen most for workers already unemployed 27 weeks or longer, widening the duration gap and signaling that current dynamics are different because such widening has previously only occurred if the economy was in a recession.
Briefing
Worker Types, AI Exposure and the Recent Decline in Job-Finding Rates
The recent decline in unemployment outflow rates is concentrated among specific groups of workers, rather than spread evenly across the labor force.Strongly attached workers — those with stable employment histories — have experienced the largest decline in job-finding rates.Workers in occupations highly exposed to artificial intelligence have seen larger declines in job-finding rates, pointing to AI affecting the labor market.
Briefing
Aggregate or Structural? Diagnosing the Rise in Unemployment
The decline in the job-finding rate is largest for strongly attached workers in occupations highly exposed to artificial intelligence, but this group is too small to drive the aggregate change on its own.A standard flows-based decomposition shows that less-exposed workers — both primary and secondary types — account for roughly half of the aggregate decline in the job-finding rate since mid-2023.AI exposure is an important but not dominant factor driving the decline in job-finding probability.
Briefing
High Labor Market Churn During the 2020 Recession
Richmond Fed research has found that job losses during the COVID-19 recession have been concentrated in high-turnover sectors, with turnover rates in those occupations even higher than they were during the Great Recession. Workers displaced from high-turnover occupations often avoid long periods of unemployment, but they are historically less likely to develop long-term employment relationships, which limits their potential for sustained wage growth.
Briefing
The Shortcomings of a Work-Biased Welfare System
The recently passed American Rescue Plan Act has once again brought attention to the U.S. welfare system. This EB provides an overview of the welfare system — including recent changes — and assesses the system's effectiveness in achieving its goals. The brief highlights a "work bias" that is embedded in many U.S. welfare programs and has both intended and unintended effects on the system's ability to combat poverty.