The Fall and Rise of Immigrant Employment During the COVID-19 Pandemic
George Borjas and
Hugh Cassidy
A chapter in 50th Celebratory Volume, 2023, vol. 50, pp 327-367 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Abstract:
Employment rates fell dramatically between March and April 2020 as the initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the US labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe for immigrants. Historically, immigrant men are more likely to work than native men. The pandemic-related labor market shock eliminated the immigrant employment advantage. After this initial precipitous drop, however, the employment recovery through June 2021 was much stronger for immigrants, and particularly for undocumented immigrants. The steep drop in immigrant employment at the start of the pandemic occurred partly because immigrants were less likely to work in jobs that could be performed remotely and suffered disproportionate employment losses as only workers with remotable skills were able to continue working from home. The stronger employment recovery of undocumented immigrants, relative to that experienced by natives or legal immigrants, is mostly explained by the fact that undocumented workers were not eligible for the generous unemployment insurance (UI) benefits offered to workers during the pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; immigrant employment; job remotability; unemployment insurance; legal status; labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... 7-912120230000050014
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rleczz:s0147-912120230000050014
DOI: 10.1108/S0147-912120230000050014
Access Statistics for this chapter
More chapters in Research in Labor Economics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().