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Journal Article
Parental Participation in a Pandemic Labor Market
Gender gaps in labor market outcomes during the pandemic largely reflect differences in parents’ experiences. Labor force participation fell much less for fathers compared with other men and all women at the onset of the pandemic; the recovery has been more pronounced for men and women without children. Meanwhile, labor force participation among mothers declined with the start of the school year. Evidence suggests flexibility in setting work schedules can offset some of the adverse impact on mothers’ employment, while the ability to work from home does not.
Working Paper
Unemployment Paths in a Pandemic Economy
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the U.S. economy and labor market. We assess the initial spike in unemployment due to the virus response and possible paths for the official unemployment rate through 2021. Substantial uncertainty surrounds the path for measured unemployment, depending on the path of the virus and containment measures and their impact on reported job search activity. We assess potential unemployment paths based on historical patterns of monthly flows in and out of unemployment, adjusted for unique features of the virus economy. The possible paths vary widely, but absent ...
Journal Article
Why Aren’t U.S. Workers Working?
Labor force participation among U.S. men and women ages 25 to 54 has been declining for nearly 20 years, a stark contrast with rising participation in Canada over this period. Three-fourths of the difference between the two countries can be explained by the growing gap in labor force attachment of women. A key factor is the extensive parental leave policies in Canada. If the United States could reverse the trend in participation of prime-age women to match Canada, it would see 5 million additional prime-age workers join the labor force.
Journal Article
To Retire or Keep Working after a Pandemic?
Workers age 55 and older left the labor force in large numbers following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Four years later, participation within this age group has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, despite the strongest labor market in decades. This has resulted in an estimated shortfall of nearly 2 million workers. Analysis shows that the participation shortfall is concentrated among workers in this age group without a college degree and can be explained by increased and growing retirement rates for this group, above pre-pandemic trends.
Working Paper
Replicating and Projecting the Path of COVID-19 with a Model-Implied Reproduction Number
We fit a simple epidemiology model to daily data on the number of currently-infected cases of COVID-19 in China, Italy, the United States, and Brazil. These four countries can be viewed as representing different stages, from late to early, of a COVID-19 epidemic cycle. We solve for a model-implied effective reproduction number Rt each day so that the model closely replicates the daily number of currently infected cases in each country. Using the model-implied time series of Rt, we construct a smoothed version of the in-sample trajectory which is used to project the future evolution of Rt and ...
Journal Article
Job-to-Job Transitions in an Evolving Labor Market
Job mobility in the United States has been slowing for almost two decades. The most prominent measure of mobility is direct transitions from one job to another. This measure has declined substantially among young workers ages 16 to 24 since the late 1990s, which helps explain the majority of the overall decline in job-to-job transition rates. However, for workers ages 25 and older, the labor market is essentially as dynamic today as it was 20 years ago.
Journal Article
Breakeven Employment Growth
Employment growth has consistently come in above pre-pandemic estimates of the rate needed for unemployment to stay near its long-run natural rate. Even so, unemployment has held steady, which raises the question of whether the “breakeven” employment growth rate has changed. In the short-run, recent surges in immigration and labor force participation have caused the current breakeven employment growth rate to rise as high as 230,000 jobs per month. However, the long-run breakeven employment growth rate appears unchanged, ranging around 70,000 to 90,000 jobs per month.
Journal Article
Finding a Soft Landing along the Beveridge Curve
As U.S. economic growth slows this year, a key question is whether job openings can fall from historical highs without a substantial rise in unemployment. Analyzing the current Beveridge curve relationship between unemployment and job openings presents a meaningful possibility that labor market pressures can ease and achieve a “soft landing” with only a limited increase in unemployment. This view is supported by high rates of job matching in the U.S. labor market in 2022, despite ongoing employment reallocation across industries.
Report
Redefining the labor market. SF Fed economists Rob Valletta, Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, and Mary C. Daly share their thoughts on the U.S. labor market with fellow economist President John Williams
Changes in demographics, and in employer and worker needs, have redefined the U.S. labor market. We discuss the "new normal" in our 2015 annual report, What We've Learned?and why it matters. Observations include how the gig economy?or sharing economy?is affecting the part-time workforce. We also look at influences on labor force participation rates and clarify the math behind sluggish wage growth. A consideration for both is the retirement of higher-earning baby boomers and the increase in steady employment for lower-wage workers.
Journal Article
Unemployment Insurance Withdrawal
Unemployment insurance benefits were expanded substantially to help overcome the pandemic labor market shock in early 2020. However, improved labor market conditions in early 2021 prompted many states to withdraw from the enhanced unemployment benefits programs several months before the federal program was scheduled to end in early September. A comparison of states that ended enhanced benefits early with those that maintained them suggests that the withdrawal is associated with a small pickup in employer hiring, consistent with prior studies that found the unemployment benefit expansions had ...