The short-term impact of the 2020 pandemic lockdown on employment in Greece

Gordon Betcherman (), Nicholas Giannakopoulos (), Ioannis Laliotis (), Ioanna Pantelaiou (), Mauro Testaverde () and Giannis Tzimas ()
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Gordon Betcherman: University of Ottawa, IZA
Ioanna Pantelaiou: Athens University of Economics and Business
Mauro Testaverde: World Bank
Giannis Tzimas: University of Peloponnese

Empirical Economics, 2023, vol. 65, issue 3, No 8, 1273-1307

Abstract: Abstract This paper analyzes the short-term employment impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in Greece during the first few months following the pandemic onset. During the initial lockdown period, aggregate employment was lower by almost 9 percentage points than it would have been expected based on pre-pandemic employment trends. However, due to a government intervention that prohibited layoffs, this was not due to higher separation rates. The overall short-term employment impact was due to lower hiring rates. To uncover the mechanism behind this, we use a difference-in-differences framework, and show that tourism-related activities, which are exposed to seasonal variation, had significantly lower employment entry rates in the months following the pandemic onset compared to non-tourism activities. Our results highlight the relevance of the timing of unanticipated shocks in economies with strong seasonal patterns, and the relative effectiveness of policy interventions to partly absorb the consequences of such shocks.

Keywords: Employment; Job hiring; Job separation; COVID-19; Greece (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J21 J63 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-023-02381-2

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