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Us And Uk Labour Markets Before And During The Covid-19 Crash

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  • Bell, David N.F.
  • Blanchflower, David G.

Abstract

We examine labour market performance in the US and the UK prior to the onset of the Covid-19 crash. We then track the changes that have occurred in the months and days from the beginning of March 2020 using what we call the Economics of Walking About (EWA) that shows a collapse twenty times faster and much deeper than the Great Recession. We examine unemployment insurance claims by state by day in the US as well as weekly national data. We track the distributional impact of the shock and show that already it is hitting the most vulnerable groups who are least able to work from home the hardest – the young, the least educated and minorities. We have no official labour market data for the UK past January but see evidence that job placements have fallen sharply. We report findings from an online poll fielded from 11–16 April 2020 showing that a third of workers in Canada and the US report that they have lost at least half of their income due to the Covid-19 crisis, compared with a quarter in the UK and 45 per cent in China. We estimate that the unemployment rate in the US is around 20 per cent in April. It is hard to know what it is in the UK given the paucity of data, but it has gone up a lot.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, David N.F. & Blanchflower, David G., 2020. "Us And Uk Labour Markets Before And During The Covid-19 Crash," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 252, pages 52-69, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:nierev:v:252:y:2020:i::p:r52-r69_10
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    Cited by:

    1. Belloni, Michele & Carrino, Ludovico & Meschi, Elena, 2022. "The impact of working conditions on mental health: Novel evidence from the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Roberto Roson & Emanuela Ghignoni, 2023. "A Numerical Simulation of Educational Mismatch in the Italian Labor Market," Working Papers 2023: 15, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    3. Samuel C. M. Faulconer & M. Rachél Hveem & Mikaela J. Dufur, 2022. "Gendered Associations between Single Parenthood and Child Behavior Problems in the United Kingdom," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-16, December.
    4. M. V. Kurbatova & I. V. Donova, 2023. "Labor Markets in Resource-Type Regions: Shocks of 2020," Regional Research of Russia, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 252-259, June.
    5. David Cook & Lára Jóhannsdóttir & Sarah Kendall & Catherine Chambers & Mauricio Latapí, 2022. "COVID-19 and Well-Being in Remote Coastal Communities—A Case Study from Iceland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, December.
    6. Pelly, Diane & Daly, Michael & Delaney, Liam & Doyle, Orla, 2022. "Worker stress, burnout, and wellbeing before and during the COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115098, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Zaid Obeidat & Mohammad Ibrahim Obeidat, 2023. "A typology of Jordanian consumers after Covid‐19: The rational, the suspicious, and the cautious consumer," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 121-139, January.
    8. Rajah, Nasir & Webb, Edward J.D. & Hulme, Claire & Kingsbury, Sarah R. & West, Robert & Martin, Adam, 2023. "How does arthritis affect employment? Longitudinal evidence on 18,000 British adults with arthritis compared to matched controls," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    9. Jacques Wels, & Booth, Charlotte & Wielgoszewska, Bożena & Green, Michael J. & Di Gessa, Giorgio & Huggins, Charlotte F. & Griffith, Gareth J. & Kwong, Alex S.F. & Bowyer, Ruth C.E. & Maddock, Jane & , 2022. "Mental and social wellbeing and the UK coronavirus job retention scheme: Evidence from nine longitudinal studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    10. Sabah Bushaj & Xuecheng Yin & Arjeta Beqiri & Donald Andrews & İ. Esra Büyüktahtakın, 2023. "A simulation-deep reinforcement learning (SiRL) approach for epidemic control optimization," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 328(1), pages 245-277, September.
    11. Tony Dobbins & Stewart Johnstone & Marta Kahancová & J. Ryan Lamare & Adrian Wilkinson, 2023. "Comparative impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on work and employment—Why industrial relations institutions matter," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 115-125, April.

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