Anxious workers

In recent years, the U.S. economy has expanded at a healthy pace, employment has grown substantially, and the unemployment rate has dropped to very low levels. Despite these favorable trends, some recent news stories have emphasized worker anxiety and uncertainty about their job stability and security, reinvigorating a theme that gained substantial prominence in the mid-1990s. Research economists who have investigated this topic in general have not subscribed to the view that rising worker anxiety reflects widespread, long-term changes in labor market conditions; rather, some have argued that claims of declining job stability are exaggerated, perhaps due to changes in employment conditions for small, high-profile groups, such as skilled white-collar workers. ; In this Economic Letter, I explore trends in job stability and job loss and their consequences over the past two to three decades. The findings reported shed light on why some worker groups might have reason to feel anxious.