The post-COVID-19 rise in labour shortages

Orsetta Causa, Michael Abendschein, Nhung Luu, Emilia Soldani and Chiara Soriolo

No 1721, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: The labour market recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has been strong among advanced countries, partly reflecting massive and unprecedented policy support to workers and firms. This paper provides evidence and stylised facts about labour market tightening and labour shortages since the onset of the pandemic. Labour shortages have been widespread across countries, yet particularly in Australia, Canada and the United States; and across industries, yet particularly in contact-intensive ones like accommodation and food, but also manufacturing. This picture is to a good extent driven by cyclical factors: in tight labour markets, workers are more likely to switch for better job opportunities. But this paper argues, based on illustrative evidence, that other factors beyond the economic cycle may also play a role: the post-COVID-19 increase in labour shortages may partly reflect structural changes, in particular changes in preferences, as some workers may no longer accept low-pay and poor or strenuous working conditions.

Keywords: great resignation; labour market recovery; labour shortages; policy analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E32 J11 J22 J23 J31 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-07-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/e60c2d1c-en (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1721-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().