Adjustments of local labour markets to the COVID-19 crisis

• Verfasst von: Ben Yahmed, Sarra [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Berlingieri, Francesco [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Brüll, Eduard [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Adjustments of local labour markets to the COVID-19 crisis
• Titelzusatz: the role of digitalisation and working-from-home
• Verf.angabe: Sarra Ben Yahmed, Francesco Berlingieri, and Eduard Brüll
• Verlagsort: Mannheim, Germany
• Verlag: ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
• E-Jahr: 2022
• Jahr: [2022]
• Umfang: 1 Online-Ressource (49 Seiten)
• Illustrationen: Illustrationen
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Discussion paper / ZEW ; no. 22, 031 (08/2022)
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-634250
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: COVID-19 crisis
• Sach-SW: Digitalisation
• Sach-SW: Employment
• Sach-SW: Information and communication technologies
• Sach-SW: Local labour markets
• Sach-SW: Short-time work
• Sach-SW: Working-from-home
• Form-SW: Graue Literatur
• K10plus-PPN: 1814271406

Abstract

Employment responses to the COVID-19 crisis differed widely across German local labour markets at the beginning of the pandemic, with differences in short-time work rates of up to 20 percentage points. We show that digital capital, and to a lesser extent working-from-home, were essential for the resilience of local labour markets. Using an empirical strategy that combines a difference-in-differences approach with propensity score weighting, we find that local exposure to digital capital reduced short-time work usage by up to 4 percentage points and the effect lasted for about 8 months. Working-from-home potential lowered short-time work rates, but only in local labour markets exposed to digital capital, and in the first four months of the pandemic when a strict lockdown was in place. Differences in unemployment rates across local labour markets were at most 2 percentage points and did not depend on digital capital or working-from-home potential.