COVID-19 impact on job losses in Portugal: who are the hardest-hit?

Ana Lopes and Pedro Carreira

International Journal of Manpower, 2021, vol. 43, issue 5, 1265-1282

Abstract: Purpose - The COVID-19 pandemic caused job losses to rise dramatically. Herein, the purpose of the article is to identify which personal and job characteristics make individuals more vulnerable or more resilient to COVID-19 unemployment in Portugal and thus to help policymakers, organizations and individuals themselves, in creating mechanisms to avoid unemployment within this new context. Design/methodology/approach - Using extensive personal and job-related data on the complete population of newly unemployed in Portugal over several months after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a logit model is estimated to identify the characteristics that make workers more resilient or more vulnerable to COVID-19 unemployment, in comparison with the pre-crisis period. Findings - The COVID-19 crisis is shown to be disruptive by changing the unemployment structure, increasing socioeconomic inequalities and weakening traditional mechanisms of employment protection. Additionally, the authors identify a higher vulnerability of low-skilled individuals and of those in occupations with low working-from-home feasibility and/or from non-essential sectors (particularly tourism). Practical implications - Policy indications are given aiming to protect the most vulnerable individuals, sectors and regions in Portugal, in this new and unprecedented context. Originality/value - A seven-month period following the emergence of the pandemic is considered, which allows investigating both the immediate and the medium-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis on job losses. Additionally, by matching data from three different sources, an extensive set of multilevel variables is considered, some of them new in the literature.

Keywords: COVID-19; Unemployment; Job-specific characteristics; Human capital; Working-from-home; Tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-06-2021-0384

DOI: 10.1108/IJM-06-2021-0384

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