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131 posts on "Labor Market"
April 10, 2020

The Coronavirus Shock Looks More like a Natural Disaster than a Cyclical Downturn

It’s tempting to compare the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic to prior business cycle downturns, particularly the Great Recession. However, such comparisons may not be particularly apt—as evidenced by the unprecedented surge in initial jobless claims over the past three weeks. Recessions typically develop gradually over time, reflecting underlying economic and financial conditions, whereas the current economic situation developed suddenly as a consequence of a fast-moving global pandemic. A more appropriate comparison would be to a regional economy suffering the effects of a severe natural disaster, like Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina or Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. To illustrate this point, we track the recent path of unemployment claims in the United States, finding a much closer match with Louisiana after Katrina than the U.S. economy following the Great Recession.

March 4, 2020

How Does Credit Access Affect Job‑Search Outcomes and Sorting?

The analysis considers how access to consumer credit influences the job search behavior of displaced workers.

Searching for Higher Job Satisfaction

Using data from the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations, these Liberty Street Economics authors document the heterogeneity in job satisfaction among U.S. workers and in their preferences for various nonwage benefits, and discuss the impact of these preferences on job search behavior.

Posted at 7:30 am in Expectations, Labor Market | Permalink

Is the Tide Lifting All Boats? A Closer Look at the Earnings Growth Experiences of U.S. Workers

Although there is evidence that U.S. workers at the bottom of the earnings distribution may be catching up with those at the top, there are indications that returns to higher education may be increasing, with earnings growth for college graduates outpacing those with less education.

Posted at 7:15 am in Inequality, Labor Market, Unemployment | Permalink

Women Have Been Hit Hard by the Loss of Routine Jobs, Too

Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz find that although both men and women have experienced a loss of routine jobs since 2000, the decline has been markedly steeper for women.

Posted at 7:00 am in Inequality, Labor Market, Unemployment | Permalink
March 3, 2020

Introduction to Heterogeneity Series II: Labor Market Outcomes

Rajashri Chakrabarti introduces a new Liberty Street Economics series exploring dimensions of heterogeneity in the labor market experience of U.S. workers.

February 12, 2020

Reading the Tea Leaves of the U.S. Business Cycle—Part Two

New work by Richard Crump, Domenico Giannone, and David Lucca finds labor market data to be the most reliable information for dating the U.S. business cycle.

February 10, 2020

Reading the Tea Leaves of the U.S. Business Cycle—Part One

Richard Crump, Domenico Giannone, and David Lucca discuss different conceptual approaches to dating the business cycle and study their past performance for the U.S. economy.

December 17, 2019

Growth Has Slowed across the Region

At today’s regional economic press briefing, we highlighted some recent softening in the tri-state regional economy (New York, Northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut)—a noteworthy contrast from our briefing a year ago, when economic growth and job creation were fairly brisk. We also showed that Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which are part of the New York Fed’s district, both continue to face major challenges but have made significant economic progress following the catastrophic hurricanes of 2017.

October 8, 2019

Job Ladders and Careers

Workers in the United States experience vast differences in lifetime earnings. Individuals in the 90th percentile earn around seven times more than those in the 10th percentile, and those in the top percentile earn almost twenty times more. A large share of these differences arise over the course of people’s careers. What accounts for these vastly different outcomes in the labor market? Why do some individuals experience much steeper earnings profiles than others? Previous research has shown that the “job ladder”—in which workers obtain large pay increases when they switch to better jobs or when firms want to poach them—is important for wage growth. In this post, we investigate how job ladders differ across workers.

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