Job Market Monitor
Academic Literature
Genes, education and labor market outcomes – What can genetic information teach us about the intergenerational transmission of economic inequality?
What can genetic information teach us about the intergenerational transmission of economic inequality? A new IZA Discussion Paper by Nicholas W. Papageorge (Johns Hopkins University & IZA) and Kevin Thom (New York University) uses molecular genetic data to better understand the economic returns to ability endowments over the life-cycle, and how they are influenced by … Continue reading
Muslim Immigrants in Western Europe – Terrorist attacks harms integration
The recent rise in the number and intensity of fundamentalist Islamic terrorist attacks occurring in several Western cities could, as it has in previous situations, inflame an aggressive socio-political atmosphere against Muslims. How does this affect the integration of Muslim immigrants? An IZA discussion paper by Ahmed Elsayed (IZA) and Andries de Grip (Maastricht University … Continue reading
The work test for unemployment insurance (UI) recipients – Reduced time to reemployment by 1–2 quarters for permanent job losers
The work test for unemployment insurance (UI) recipients has been a central part of UI in the United States since the system began in the 1930s. In general, to be eligible for UI benefits, a claimant initially needs an adequate work history and must have lost her job through lack of work and no fault … Continue reading
Skills – The labor market increasingly rewards social skills
The slow growth of high-paying jobs in the U.S. since 2000 and rapid advances in computer technology have sparked fears that human labor will eventually be rendered obsolete. Yet while computers perform cognitive tasks of rapidly increasing complexity, simple human interaction has proven difficult to automate. In this paper, I show that the labor market … Continue reading
After the Great Recession – Americans past 60 have seen their employment and labor force participation rates increase
Unlike prime-age Americans, who have experienced declines in employment and labor force participation since the onset of the Great Recession, Americans past 60 have seen their employment and labor force participation rates increase. In order to understand the contrasting labor force developments among the old, on the one hand, and the prime-aged, on the other, … Continue reading
Cancer and Work in the Family – Employment rates fell by about 2.4 percentage points on average in the years after spouse’s diagnosis study finds
A spouse’s cancer diagnosis is not only a health shock to the family, but can have an impact on both the work status and earnings of other family members. A new study drew on data from a number of sources, including the 1991 Census, the Canadian Cancer Registry, and personal and family income tax records. The study … Continue reading
Automatic stabilizers – Maintaining strong automatic stabilizers without jeopardizing incentives
Automatic stabilizers are praised since they are rule based and thus operate swiftly and symmetrically across the cycle. However, automatic stabilizers are not a result of macro design but the structure of the social safety net and the taxation system. The participation tax is a key determinant of the strength of the automatic stabilizers. Paradoxically, … Continue reading
Entrepreneurship and Job Creation – Predicting which firms will fail and which will succeed is nearly impossible
New firms account for a disproportionate share of aggregate job creation in advanced economies. Yet most firms fail, and it is immensely difficult to predict which firms will succeed. Policymakers can set the right conditions so that capital and other resources flow to firms with high growth potential, even if this implies initially supporting firms … Continue reading
Earnings of Immigrants in Canada – First paid employment of immigrants is a strong predictor of their long-term labour market outcomes
In spite of the role that employers may play in the selection of economic immigrants, little is known about whether and how firm-level characteristics are associated with immigrants’ labour market outcomes over the longer term. As a first step towards providing relevant evidence, this study asks whether there are large gaps between the initial earnings … Continue reading
Technology and Jobs – Automation and digitalisation are unlikely to destroy large numbers of jobs
In recent years, there has been a revival of concerns that automation and digitalisation might after all result in a jobless future. The debate has been fuelled by studies for the US and Europe arguing that a substantial share of jobs is at “risk of computerisation”. These studies follow an occupation-based approach proposed by Frey … Continue reading
Skill Mismatches in Transition Economies – Quantitative indicators should be treated with caution
In transition economies, the proportion of the adult population educated to the secondary level or higher (the stock of human capital) is on par with that in mature market economies. Policymakers often use educational attainment data as one of their country’s key competitive advantages for attracting foreign investment and innovation. However, these quantitative indicators should … Continue reading
Skills Gap – Measuring Skill Mismatch
Skills are the new “global currency of 21st-century economies” and skill mismatch occurs when skills possessed by the workers exceed or do not meet the skills required at their workplace. It can lead to skill depreciation and slower adaptation to technological progress, from a macroeconomic perspective, and impacts workers’ earnings and job satisfaction, from a … Continue reading
Minimum Wage – Any evidence of a negative employment effect is not robust
There is a huge body of empirical research on the employment effect of the minimum wage that has failed to clearly demonstrate the negative effect that so many economists strongly believe to find. This paper reviews the reasons for this and argues that the literature needs to re-focus to further our knowledge on the topic. … Continue reading
China – The sex-ratio effects of family planning policies
China’s family planning policies are one set of the most fundamental social policies in China and are more complex than the simplified notion of a one-child policy. The Chinese government initiated the family planning policies in 1962; the well-known one-child policy had only been implemented since 1980. Even after 1980, there were considerable regional and … Continue reading
Interprovincial Mobility In Canada – Increase in relative real average annual wages in Alberta had a significant impact
The relatively stronger wage growth observed in Alberta during the 2000s led a significant number of young men to move to that province, thereby filling some of the job vacancies observed during that period. A new study found that from 2001 to 2006, average real annual wages and salaries earned by unmarried men aged 17 to 34 grew faster in Alberta than in … Continue reading
