Climate Change and Unemployment Seasonality: Evidence from US Counties

W. Similan Rujiwattanapong and Masahiro Yoshida ()
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Masahiro Yoshida: Department of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, Tokyo

No 2512, Working Papers from Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics

Abstract: Historically, unemployment peaks in the first and third quarters—the arrival of cold winters and hot summers. This paper attributes non-seasonally-adjusted (NSA) unemployment fluctuations to temperature shocks and assesses the impact of climate change on unemployment seasonality. Combining granular daily weather across US counties with monthly unemployment rates over the period 1990-2019, we find that extreme temperature days fuel unemployment by freezing hiring and triggering layoffs and thus, insurance claims and recipients. Climate change accounts for 40% of the decline in unemployment seasonality and 13% of the moderation in fluctuations in the overall NSA unemployment rate. Accelerated future warming will propagate the unemployment seasonality through milder winters and harsher summers.

Keywords: Climate change; Unemployment rate; Unemployment seasonality; Unemployment insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J63 J64 J65 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2025-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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