 Pandemic and employment: Evidence from COVID-19 in South KoreaJongkwan Lee and Hee-Seung Yang () Journal of Asian Economics, 2022, vol. 78, issue C Abstract: Using two complementary approaches, this study examines the deterioration of the Korean labor market during the first 10 months of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Applying the synthetic control method, we first find that the COVID-19 outbreak has eliminated 1.1 million jobs (4.2% of nonfarm employment) nationwide in April 2020. However, a difference-in-differences approach shows that local variation in COVID-19 intensity, which captures the “regional” effect of the pandemic, explains only 9% of the national shock. The portion of the regional effect remains low until December. This is mainly because the nationwide fear and policies such as social distancing measures also have a “common” effect on local economies. Our findings suggest that the COVID-19 shock may last long in the labor market due to this common effect unless the risk of infection is completely eliminated. Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Employment; Synthetic control method; Difference-in-differences; South Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:asieco:v:78:y:2022:i:c:s1049007821001603 DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2021.101432 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Asian Economics is currently edited by C. Wiemer More articles in Journal of Asian Economics from Elsevier |
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