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Being on the Frontline? Immigrant Workers in Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

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  • Fasani, Francesco

    (University of Milan)

  • Mazza, Jacopo

    (Utrecht University)

Abstract

We provide a first timely assessment of the pandemic crisis impact on the labour market prospects of immigrant workers in Europe by proposing a novel measure of their exposure to employment risk. We characterize migrants' occupations along four dimensions related to the role of workers' occupations in the response to the pandemic, the contractual protection they enjoy, the possibility of performing their job from home and the resilience of the industry in which they are employed. We show that our measure of employment risk closely predicts actual employment losses observed in European countries after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimate that, within industries and occupations, Extra-EU migrants and women are exposed to higher risk of unemployment than native men and that women are losing jobs at higher rates than equally exposed men. According to our estimates, more than 9 million immigrants in the EU14+UK area are exposed to a high risk of becoming unemployed due to the pandemic crisis, 1.3 million of which are facing a very high risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Fasani, Francesco & Mazza, Jacopo, 2020. "Being on the Frontline? Immigrant Workers in Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic," IZA Discussion Papers 13963, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13963
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    Cited by:

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    2. Tijan L. Bah & Catia Batista & Flore Gubert & David McKenzie, 2021. "How has COVID-19 affected the intention to migrate via the backway to Europe and to a neighboring African country? Survey evidence and a salience experiment in The Gambia," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2107, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    3. Pierre Alassaf & Basem Munir El-assaf & Zsigmond Gábor Szalay, 2023. "Worker’s Satisfaction and Intention toward Working from Home—Foreign Non-EU Citizens vs. National Workers’ Approach: Case Study of Central European Countries (Visegrád Group (V4))," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Senyo Dotsey & Audrey Lumley-Sapanski & Maurizio Ambrosini, 2023. "COVID-19 and (Im)migrant Carers in Italy: The Production of Carer Precarity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(12), pages 1-18, June.
    5. Florio, Erminia & Kharazi, Aicha, 2022. "Curtailment of Economic Activity and Labor Inequalities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1166, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Theodoros Fouskas & George Koulierakis & Fotini-Maria Mine & Athanasios Theofilopoulos & Sofia Konstantopoulou & Fabiola Ortega-de-Mora & Dimitrios Georgiadis & Georgia Pantazi, 2022. "Racial and Ethnic Inequalities, Health Disparities and Racism in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic Populism in the EU: Unveiling Anti-Migrant Attitudes, Precarious Living Conditions and Barriers to Integrati," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-22, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    employment risk; COVID-19; key occupations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

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