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Discussion Paper
The Anatomy of Labor Demand Pre‑ and Post‑COVID
Has labor demand changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? In this post, we leverage detailed data on the universe of U.S. online job listings to study the dynamics of labor demand pre- and post-COVID. We find that there has been a significant shift in listings out of the central cities and into the “fringe” portion of large metro areas, smaller metro areas, and rural areas. We also find a substantial decline in job listings in computer and mathematical and business and financial operations occupations, and a corresponding increase in job openings in sales, office and administrative support, ...
Journal Article
Do Immigration Restrictions Affect Job Vacancies? Evidence from Online Job Postings
The U.S. workforce relies heavily on immigration. However, a series of policy changes and the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rare decline in immigrant arrivals from 2016 to 2021. This period of reduced immigration coincided with and exacerbated already severe shortages in the U.S. labor market, leading employers and firms to look for new sources of labor. At the same time, online job postings became more prevalent as a method of searching for labor. These postings provide rich data that could help reveal how different dimensions of labor demand change in response to declining immigration.Elior ...
Discussion Paper
Do Employers Comply with Pay Transparency Requirements in Job Postings?
Over the past few months, New Jersey and Vermont have joined a growing number of U.S. states in requiring employers to include an estimated salary range in their online job listings. Has this push for greater pay transparency been effective? In this post, we use granular data on U.S. job postings from Lightcast to assess employers’ compliance with these new regulations. Focusing on the jurisdictions that adopted pay transparency laws early on, we find that many employers ignore pay transparency requirements; roughly a quarter of job listings covered by these laws fail to include salary ...