Download or read book Has the Great Recession Raised U S Structural Unemployment written by Marcello M. Estevão and published by . This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent crisis has had differential effects across U.S. states and industries causing a wide geographic dispersion in skill mismatches and housing market performance. We document these facts and, using data from the 50 states plus D.C from 1991 to 2008, we present econometric evidence that supports that changes in state-level unemployment rates are linked to skill mismatches and housing market performance even after controlling for cyclical effects. This result suggests some causality going from mismatches and housing conditions to unemployment rates. The numerical estimates imply that the structural unemployment rate in 2010 was about 1¾ percentage points higher than before the onset of the housing market meltdown at end-2006. Reversing this increase may require targeted active labor market policies and measures to expedite the adjustment in housing markets, as our results suggest weak housing market conditions interact negatively with skill mismatches to produce higher unemployment rates in the United States.

Download or read book Structural Unemployment in the United States written by Barbara R. Bergmann and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Great Recession written by David B. Grusky and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Officially over in 2009, the Great Recession is now generally acknowledged to be the most devastating global economic crisis since the Great Depression. As a result of the crisis, the United States lost more than 7.5 million jobs, and the unemployment rate doubled—peaking at more than 10 percent. The collapse of the housing market and subsequent equity market fluctuations delivered a one-two punch that destroyed trillions of dollars in personal wealth and made many Americans far less financially secure. Still reeling from these early shocks, the U.S. economy will undoubtedly take years to recover. Less clear, however, are the social effects of such economic hardship on a U.S. population accustomed to long periods of prosperity. How are Americans responding to these hard times? The Great Recession is the first authoritative assessment of how the aftershocks of the recession are affecting individuals and families, jobs, earnings and poverty, political and social attitudes, lifestyle and consumption practices, and charitable giving. Focused on individual-level effects rather than institutional causes, The Great Recession turns to leading experts to examine whether the economic aftermath caused by the recession is transforming how Americans live their lives, what they believe in, and the institutions they rely on. Contributors Michael Hout, Asaf Levanon, and Erin Cumberworth show how job loss during the recession—the worst since the 1980s—hit less-educated workers, men, immigrants, and factory and construction workers the hardest. Millions of lost industrial jobs are likely never to be recovered and where new jobs are appearing, they tend to be either high-skill positions or low-wage employment—offering few opportunities for the middle-class. Edward Wolff, Lindsay Owens, and Esra Burak examine the effects of the recession on housing and wealth for the very poor and the very rich. They find that while the richest Americans experienced the greatest absolute wealth loss, their resources enabled them to weather the crisis better than the young families, African Americans, and the middle class, who experienced the most disproportionate loss—including mortgage delinquencies, home foreclosures, and personal bankruptcies. Lane Kenworthy and Lindsay Owens ask whether this recession is producing enduring shifts in public opinion akin to those that followed the Great Depression. Surprisingly, they find no evidence of recession-induced attitude changes toward corporations, the government, perceptions of social justice, or policies aimed at aiding the poor. Similarly, Philip Morgan, Erin Cumberworth, and Christopher Wimer find no major recession effects on marriage, divorce, or cohabitation rates. They do find a decline in fertility rates, as well as increasing numbers of adult children returning home to the family nest—evidence that suggests deep pessimism about recovery. This protracted slump—marked by steep unemployment, profound destruction of wealth, and sluggish consumer activity—will likely continue for years to come, and more pronounced effects may surface down the road. The contributors note that, to date, this crisis has not yet generated broad shifts in lifestyle and attitudes. But by clarifying how the recession’s early impacts have—and have not—influenced our current economic and social landscape, The Great Recession establishes an important benchmark against which to measure future change.

Download or read book Unequally Unemployed written by Jennifer Laird and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was the most destabilizing recession since the Great Depression. After the mortgage securitization bubble burst in 2007, the Great Recession erased more than half of the stock market capitalization (Grusky et al., 2011). The financial collapse led to waves of job loss and unemployment. In March of 2007 the national unemployment rate was 4.4%. By October 2009, unemployment had increased almost six percentage points to 10.1%. The number of unemployed people in the United States more than doubled between 2008 and 2009. Unemployment rates reached record highs after the onset of the recession, particularly among black men (a group that already had a heightened risk of unemployment prior to the recession). By March of 2010, nearly one in five black male labor force participants over the age of 20 was unemployed. The black/white employment gap among women also increased, as well as the employment gap between the most educated and the least educated. White and foreign-born Hispanic men maintained relatively low unemployment rates, even during the recession. Social scientists have a clear understanding of the patterns and sources of income inequality. This dissertation investigates patterns and sources of employment inequality. I focus on a unique historical period: the Great Recession and its aftermath. Compared to other recessionary periods, the labor market repercussions from the Great Recession were especially severe and long-lasting (Grusky et al., 2011). I examine how these repercussions vary by race, ethnicity, and gender. Based on their socioeconomic characteristics, Mexican immigrant men should have very high unemployment. More than half do not have a high school diploma. One in four works in construction; at the height of the recent recession, 20% of construction workers were unemployed. Yet their unemployment rates are similar to those of native-born white men. Chapter 2 examines potential reasons for the Mexican immigrant employment paradox. I consider explanations based on theories about out-migrant and in-migrant selection, disparities in reservation wages, and employer preferences for immigrant labor. Chapter 3 examines the extent to which the public sector protected black workers from the employment shocks of the Great Recession. Historically, the public sector has served as an equalizing institution through the expansion of job opportunities for minority workers. Using Current Population Survey cross-sectional and longitudinal data, I investigate changes in public sector employment and unemployment between 2003 and 2013. My results point to a post-recession double disadvantage for black public sector workers: they are concentrated in a shrinking sector of the economy, and they are substantially more likely than white and Hispanic public sector workers to be unemployed. These two trends are a historical break for the public sector labor market. I find that race and ethnicity gaps in public sector employment cannot be explained by differences in education, occupation, or any of the other measurable factors that are typically associated with employment. Among unemployed public sector workers, black women are the least likely to transition into private sector employment. Compared to the private sector, however, the post-recession public sector has had consistently lower levels of racial and ethnic employment stratification. Chapter 4 investigates whether and how labor market context affects racial and ethnic employment disparities. I find that black men are more likely to be employed when they reside in areas with 1) a large concentration of public sector jobs, or 2) relatively lax employment, labor, and hiring regulations. I conclude that while black men are more likely to be working when employers have fewer impediments to hiring and firing, black men also benefit from access to highly regulated public sector employment opportunities.

Download or read book The Causes of Structural Unemployment written by Thomas Janoski and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-06-27 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a specter haunting advanced industrial countries: structural unemployment. Recent years have seen growing concern over declining jobs, and though corporate profits have picked up after the Great Recession of 2008, jobs have not. It is possible that “jobless recoveries” could become a permanent feature of Western economies. This illuminating book focuses on the employment futures of advanced industrial countries, providing readers with the sociological imagination to appreciate the bigger picture of where workers fit in the new international division of labor. The authors piece together a puzzle that reveals deep structural forces underlying unemployment: skills mismatches caused by a shift from manufacturing to service jobs; increased offshoring in search of lower wages; the rise of advanced communication and automated technologies; and the growing financialization of the global economy that aggravates all of these factors. Weaving together varied literatures and data, the authors also consider what actions and policy initiatives societies might take to alleviate these threats. Addressing a problem that should be front and center for political economists and policymakers, this book will be illuminating reading for students of the sociology of work, labor studies, inequality, and economic sociology.

Download or read book Unemployment in the Great Recession written by Florian Hoffmann and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper investigates the potential reasons for the surprisingly different labor market performance of the United States, Canada, Germany, and several other OECD countries during and after the Great Recession of 2008-09. Unemployment rates did not change substantially in Germany, increased and remained at relatively high levels in the United States, and increased moderately in Canada. More recent data also show that, unlike Germany and Canada, the U.S. unemployment rate remains largely above its pre-recession level. We find two main explanations for these differences. First, the large employment swings in the construction sector linked to the boom and bust in U.S. housing markets can account for a large fraction of the cross-country differences in aggregate labor market outcomes for the three countries. Second, cross-country differences are consistent with a conventional Okun relationship linking GDP growth to employment performance. In particular, relative to pre-recession trends there has been a much larger drop in GDP in the United States than Germany between 2008 and 2012. In light of these facts, the strong performance of the German labor market is consistent with other aggregate outcomes of the economy.

Download or read book Global Employment Trends written by Claire Harasty and published by International Labour Organization. This book was released on 2003 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating the most recent data available for 2002, this report analyses current labour market trends and examines the impact of the global economic downturn and post 11 September developments upon different world regions. Covering Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, the transition economies and industrial countries, it focuses on the distinct labour market characteristics and challenges faced by each region and economic group. It also traces factors contributing to the global employment decline, such as the increase in informal sector employment, the decrease in employment in information and communication technology, as well as extensive jobs losses in the travel and tourism industries and the export and labour-intensive manufacturing sectors.

Download or read book Working Scared or Not at All written by Carl E. Van Horn and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Work Scared draws on nearly twenty-five thousand interviews with employed and unemployed Americans conducted from 1998 to 2012. These voices of American workers tell a compelling story about wrenching structural changes and recessions during one of the most volatile periods in U.S. economic history. This book represents one of the most comprehensive social science research portraits of the views of American workers about their jobs, the workplace, and government's role in the labor market. Working Sacred will help citizens, policy makers, educators, businesses, unions, and community leaders betters understand what is happening to the U.S. workforce. It also describes the essential national priorities and policies that will assist frustrated, angry, and scared American workers and the reforms that will help restore the American dream of secure employment and intergenerational progress."--Jacket.

Download or read book Sectoral Change and Unemployment During the Great Recession in Historical Perspective written by Curtis J. Simon and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I examine the effect of sectoral change on U.S. state unemployment during the Great Recession. Of the 4.1 percentage point increase in mean state unemployment between 2007 and 2009, increased structural change explains 0.6-1.18 percentage points, and increased estimated effects of structural change 0.8-2.7 percentage points. Despite the role of housing in the recession, neither construction nor any other one sector can account for the results. Although the pace and role of structural change had returned to normal levels after the Great Recession, their effects persisted, raising mean state unemployment by 0.9-2.3 percentage points in 2011.

Download or read book An Update to simulating the Effect of the Great Recession on Poverty written by Emily Monea and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to new data recently released by the Census Bureau, 14.3 percent of Americans were living in poverty in 2009. In September of 2009 we performed an analysis in which we simulated what would happen to the poverty rate over the next several years based on projections of the unemployment rate and the estimated relationship between the poverty rate and the unemployment rate. We provide a brief update to that analysis here. The bottom line of this analysis is that the recession is likely to have a dramatic impact on poverty over the next several years. Our simulations suggest that the overall poverty rate will increase from 12.5 percent in 2007 to nearly 16 percent by 2014 and that the child poverty rate will increase from 18 percent in 2007 to nearly 26 percent in 2014, adding about 10 million people total and 6 million children to the ranks of the poor by the middle of the current decade. Despite the fact that our simulation accurately predicted the poverty rate for 2009, we emphasize that there is a strong possibility that the estimates we present here are conservative, given that we do not know how dramatic of an effect the current recession will have on structural unemployment in the future. In light of these increases we believe that programs such as Food Stamps and TANF that can help to buffer the effects of the recession on lower-income families should be maintained or increased in these difficult economic times. With the economic recovery stagnating, projections of the unemployment rate over the next 5 to 10 years tell a story of lingering high unemployment (see Table A). The Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) all project an average annual rate of 9 percent or above for 2010 and 2011 and above 8 percent for 2012. Both CBO and OMB project that the rate will drop relatively quickly afterward, settling near 5 percent by the middle of the decade. However, more recent data suggest these longer-term projections may be overly optimistic and may not adequately incorporate the effects of a prolonged period of high unemployment on the level of structural unemployment. Indeed, the latest EIU projections, released on September 8, 2010, see the unemployment rate remaining well above 8 percent through 2014 (the latest year for which EIU provides projections). Taking these projections at face value, how will these elevated levels of unemployment affect poverty?

Download or read book Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Spring 2017 written by Janice Eberly and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) provides academic and business economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities with timely research on current economic issues.

Download or read book Uncertainty and Unemployment written by Sangyup Choi and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-02-23 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study the role of uncertainty shocks in explaining unemployment dynamics, separating out the role of aggregate and sectoral channels. Using S&P500 data from the first quarter of 1957 to third quarter of 2014, we construct separate indices to measure aggregate and sectoral uncertainty and compare their effects on the unemployment rate in a standard macroeconomic vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We find that aggregate uncertainty leads to an immediate increase in unemployment, with the impact dissipating within a year. In contrast, sectoral uncertainty has a long-lived impact on unemployment, with the peak impact occurring after two years. The results are consistent with a view that the impact of aggregate uncertainty occurs through a “wait-and-see” mechanism while increased sectoral uncertainty raises unemployment by requiring greater reallocation across sectors.

Download or read book Deconstructing Structural Unemployment written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some economic observers argue “structural unemploymentâ€ŗ has increased in the wake of the Great Recession, but in this paper we find little support for either of two arguments that suggest that structural unemployment has been on the rise. The first argument focuses on the large increase in unemployment among construction workers. The second argument is that falling house prices have reduced the mobility of unemployed workers â€" creating a “house lockâ€ŗ in which unemployed workers, who would otherwise relocate to regions with jobs, are stuck in high unemployment areas.

Download or read book Is Labor Market Mismatch a Big Deal in Japan written by Mr.Ippei Shibata and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its low unemployment rate, the recent shift in the Japanese Beveridge curve indicates increased labor mismatch. This paper quantifies the age, employment-type (full or part-time), and occupational mismatch in the Japanese labor market following Sahin and others (2013). Between April 2000 and April 2013, the age mismatch has steadily declined while the occupational and employmenttype mismatch has shown a countercyclical pattern, showing a sharp increase during the global financial crisis. Occupational mismatch accounted for approximtely 20-40 percent of the recent rise in the unemployment rate in Japan. The magnitude was comparable to that of the U.K. and the U.S.

Download or read book Potential Effects of the Great Recession on the U S Labor Market written by William T. Dickens and published by . This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study shows that the effect of the Great Recession on the U.S. labor market will likely persist even after economic output has recovered. Although the recession did not greatly change the relative probabilities of job loss for different types of workers, the long-run impact will vary by worker characteristics. Workers who lost long-term jobs during the Great Recession are at increased risk of future job loss due to the loss of protection afforded by long-term job tenure, and older displaced workers are at a relatively high risk of prolonged spells of unemployment and premature retirement. The recent increase in the job vacancy rate with relatively little change in the unemployment rate suggests a decrease in the efficiency of job matching and an increase in the NAIRU. However, this phenomenon may pass once aggregate demand has increased enough to bring vacancy rates back within their normal range and extended unemployment insurance programs have expired. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.

Download or read book The Recent Evolution of the Natural Rate of Unemployment written by Mary C. Daly and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. economy is recovering from the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession, but the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. Some have argued that the persistent elevation of unemployment relative to historical norms reflects the fact that the shocks that hit the economy were especially disruptive to labor markets and likely to have long lasting effects. If such structural factors are at work they would result in a higher underlying natural or nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment, implying that conventional monetary and fiscal policy should not be used in an attempt to return unemployment to its pre-recession levels. We investigate the hypothesis that the natural rate of unemployment has increased since the recession began, and if so, whether the underlying causes are transitory or persistent. We begin by reviewing a standard search and matching model of unemployment, which shows that two curves - the Beveridge curve (BC) and the Job Creation curve (JCC) - determine equilibrium unemployment. Using this framework, our joint theoretical and empirical exercise suggests that the natural rate of unemployment has in fact risen over the past several years, by an amount ranging from 0.6 to 1.9 percentage points. This increase implies a current natural rate in the range of 5.6 to 6.9 percent, with our preferred estimate at 6.25 percent. After examining evidence regarding the effects of labor market mismatch, extended unemployment benefits, and productivity growth, we conclude that only a small fraction of the recent increase in the natural rate is likely to persist beyond a five-year forecast horizon. -- equilibrium unemployment ; Beveridge curve ; structural unemployment ; mismatch

Download or read book Mismatch Unemployment written by Aysegul Sahin and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We develop a framework where mismatch between vacancies and job seekers across sectors translates into higher unemployment by lowering the aggregate job-finding rate. We use this framework to measure the contribution of mismatch to the recent rise in U.S. unemployment by exploiting two sources of cross-sectional data on vacancies, JOLTS and HWOL, a new database covering the universe of online U.S. job advertisements. Mismatch across industries and occupations explains at most 1/3 of the total observed increase in the unemployment rate, whereas geographical mismatch plays no apparent role. The share of the rise in unemployment explained by occupational mismatch is increasing in the education level.