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Discussion Paper
Who Has COVID-19 Impacted and What’s Been Done to Help?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the unemployment rate monthly. Generally, it gives an idea of the number of Americans who are out of work and looking for new employment. During times of economic stress, however, this metric may not paint a full picture of those who are out of work.Headline unemployment numbers can be misleading, and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the accuracy of the picture painted by the headline unemployment numbers. For instance, the October jobs report from the BLS identified 11.1 million unemployed workers, or 6.9 percent unemployment. But this ...
Discussion Paper
Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and Wage Replacement Rates
When coronavirus swept through the country in early March, the United States saw a public health crisis like no other in living memory. Shelter-in-place orders that were implemented to keep communities safe from coronavirus had another impact, a halt in most economic activity. Consumer spending dropped 6.9 percent in March year-over-year, falling to a 13.6 percent year-over-year decline in April. Personal income was down 2.2 percent in March, but, due to government programs such as increased unemployment insurance and the stimulus checks, up 10.5 percent in April, despite a record number of ...
Discussion Paper
Transitioning from Hospitality to Health Care Occupations
The job losses and unemployment claims caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are unrivaled in modern times. Despite record job growth in June and a decline in unemployment, the U.S. economy remains at great risk. Although many furloughed workers have returned to their jobs, millions of workers have been laid off permanently. Many of the regained jobs were in industry sectors most affected by the initial shutdown, such as bars and restaurants and hospitality and tourism. Since the U.S. Department of Labor's June Employment Situation Summary was released, however, COVID-19 cases have spiked in many ...
Discussion Paper
Can Community Colleges Step Up as Engines of Economic Recovery?
In midsummer 2010, the New York Times sent a reporter to the Rust Belt to talk to manufacturing employers.1 Had the picture brightened in their sector? Were they adding jobs? How many of the 2 million manufacturing workers laid off since the crash in 2007 were being rehired?The answer was unexpected and bittersweet. Manufacturing was slowly coming back, and plants were starting to rehire. But even with a vast pool of unemployed workers to draw on, employers were having trouble filling jobs. "The people that are out of work don’t match the jobs that are open and growing," one Midwesterner ...
Discussion Paper
The Post-COVID Economy: Pathways for Rebuilding a More Equitable and Inclusive Workplace
The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health emergency in our nation’s history, and the resulting economic recession has led to millions of people being unemployed and hundreds of thousands losing their lives. Both these challenges have disproportionally affected those people who were already vulnerable—low-income workers, especially those without equal access to economic opportunity due to their race, gender, education level, or ZIP code. This crisis has demonstrated just how imperative it is that workforce development reshapes the pathways to opportunity in this country.
Discussion Paper
Rework America Alliance: Helping Workers Move into Good Jobs
We see the current situation as a call to action—and an unparalleled opportunity to advance more effective and equitable systems to connect people to opportunity. Seizing this opportunity will require building new partnerships improving training systems, and prototyping new models of action. As such, we are excited to announce that the Atlanta Fed’s Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity is partnering with the Markle Foundation and many other organizations to launch the Rework America Alliance, an innovative, nationwide initiative to help workers emerge from this crisis stronger. ...
Discussion Paper
Opportunity Occupations in the Southeast
Opportunity occupations—or opportunity employment—are jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree and pay above a regionally adjusted median wage. This article takes a look at trends in the Southeast. For a deeper look at trends in opportunity occupations, see also "Opportunity Occupations Revisited: Exploring Employment for Sub-Baccalaureate Workers Across Metro Areas and Over Time."
Discussion Paper
Skills-based Approaches for Finding Talent and Diversifying the Workforce: Six Lessons from Employers
Securing the right talent is crucial for every employer. Especially challenging in a tight labor market, it is a perennial issue for certain industries, occupations, and geographies. At the same time, persistent employment outcome disparities exist. The labor mismatch—where current job seekers’ credentials, or lack thereof, do not match employer job requirements—has prompted a widening trend in which employers have shifted from prioritizing degrees in favor of evaluating potential workers based on their transferable skills.The adoption of skills-based practices offers a practical ...
Discussion Paper
Hiring Difficulties across Industries and Location
In the current tight labor market with low levels of unemployment, it is not surprising that a large share of firms experience difficulty hiring candidates for open positions. However, much is unclear about the extent of these difficulties, their underlying reasons, and how firms respond. Using data from the Federal Reserve Banks' national 2017 Small Business Credit Survey, a recent paper examines the nature of firms' hiring difficulties and how they vary by industry and geographic location. The paper also explores how the reasons behind hiring difficulties relate to firms' responses. The ...
Discussion Paper
Reconceptualizing Workers as Lifelong Learners
In a rapidly evolving labor market impacted by a complex interaction of economic, demographic, and technological shifts, ensuring that workers remain competitive and that industry and employers' needs are met will depend on developing and maintaining up-to-date and relevant skills.Skill requirements are changing. In a study conducted between 2016 and 2021, on average, 37 percent of the top skills requested for jobs in the United States changed, and one in five skills are new. Automation and the development of emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence have and will ...