EU Jobs at Highest Risk of COVID-19 Social Distancing: Will the Pandemic Exacerbate Labour Market Divide?

Konstantinos Pouliakas and Jiri Branka
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Jiri Branka: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop)

No 13281, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper employs a skills-based approach to identify individual and job factors most likely to be impacted by social distancing measures and practices due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using data from the Cedefop European skills and jobs survey, a Covid-19 social distancing risk index (COV19R) is created based on skills descriptors that categorise jobs by their level of physical proximity to others and their digital intensity. It is conservatively estimated that about 45 million jobs in the EU-27 labour market (23% of total EU-27 employment) are faced with a very high risk of Covid-19 disruption and another 22% of the EU workforce – mostly medium- to lower-skilled service provision – is exposed to some significant risk. The burden of the Covid-19 social distancing risk falls disproportionately on vulnerable workforce groups, such as women, older employees, non-natives, the lower-educated, those working longer hours and employed in micro-sized workplaces. The findings call for immediate and targeted policy responses to prevent ongoing job losses and widening of labour market and social inequalities due to the pandemic.

Keywords: risk; social distancing; COVID-19; skills; EU (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 J01 J24 J28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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