Discussion Paper
The Persistent Urban Shortfall in Leisure and Hospitality Employment
Murray, Seth; Chapuis, Brendan J.; Price, Brendan M. (2023-07-28)
As a high-contact service sector with limited capacity for remote work, the US leisure and hospitality sector—which includes restaurants, bars, hotels, museums, and movie theaters—was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first two months of the pandemic, leisure and hospitality lost over 8 million jobs, nearly half its employment (Figure 1, solid red line).
FEDS Notes , Paper 2023-07-28-1

Working Paper
Income in the Off-Season: Household Adaptation to Yearly Work Interruptions
Price, Brendan M.; Coglianese, John M. (2020-10-07)
Joblessness is highly seasonal. To analyze how households adapt to seasonal joblessness, we introduce a measure of seasonal work interruptions premised on the idea that a seasonal worker will tend to exit employment around the same time each year. We show that an excess share of prime-age US workers experience recurrent separations spaced exactly 12 months apart. These separations coincide with aggregate seasonal downturns and are concentrated in seasonally volatile industries. Examining workers most prone to seasonal work interruptions, we find that these workers incur large earnings losses ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2020-084

Working Paper
Reconciling Unemployment Claims with Job Losses in the First Months of the COVID-19 Crisis
Price, Brendan M.; Ratner, David; Weingarden, Alison E.; Figura, Andrew; Cajner, Tomaz (2020-07-17)
In the spring of 2020, many observers relied heavily on weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits (UI) to estimate contemporaneous reductions in US employment induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though UI claims provided a timely, high-frequency window into mounting layoffs, the cumulative volume of initial claims filed through the May reference week substantially exceeded realized reductions in payroll employment and likely contributed to the historically large discrepancy between consensus expectations of further April-to-May job losses and the strong job gains reflected in ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2020-055

Discussion Paper
Long COVID, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled Decline in Disability Rates
Price, Brendan M. (2022-08-05)
Long COVID encompasses a suite of long-term symptoms that commonly include fatigue, shortness of breath, and so-called brain fog, along with many others. Individuals with long-term symptoms may be unable to work (or work full-time) as a result of their condition, and there is growing speculation that long COVID may be restraining labor supply.
FEDS Notes , Paper 2022-08-05-2