What’s Sidelining Workers?

Tom Barkin

Speech from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Abstract: This year, we’ve seen that shortages in labor supply can constrain economic growth. This might seem unique to the pandemic but as our workforce ages and birthrates decline, we could find workforce availability limiting our economic growth. There are nearly 108 million on the sidelines. Approximately 8 million are unemployed and roughly 100 million are out of the labor force. The pandemic has exacerbated four key barriers to employment: mismatches, family care, health and incentives. Overall, this is a math problem. Those on the sidelines won’t come back to the labor market unless the math makes better sense to them, whether it be child care, benefits, compensation, transportation or investment in education.

Keywords: employment; and; labor; markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-10-19
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