IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13623.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour Supply during Lockdown and a "New Normal": The Case of the Netherlands

Author

Listed:
  • Gaudecker, Hans-Martin von

    (University of Bonn)

  • Holler, Radost

    (Bonn Graduate School of Economics)

  • Janys, Lena

    (Newcastle University)

  • Siflinger, Bettina M.

    (Tilburg University)

  • Zimpelmann, Christian

    (University of Hamburg)

Abstract

We document the evolution of hours of work using monthly data from February to June 2020. During this period, the Netherlands experienced a quick spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, enacted a lockdown for a period of six weeks and gradually opened thereafter. We show that during lock-down, substitutability between work from home and at the workplace or essential worker status are key to maintain a large fraction of pre-crisis hours of work. These pandemic-specific mechanisms become much less important as social distancing restrictions are eased in May and June. Labor supply recovers quickly in sectors affected heavily during lockdown, but goes down in other areas of the economy. The latter is unlikely caused by pandemic-induced supply changes; diminished demand is a more plausible explanation. Analyzing take-up of economic support programs, we find suggestive evidence that wage subsidies and other programs helped limit the early-stage impact of the crisis along the extensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaudecker, Hans-Martin von & Holler, Radost & Janys, Lena & Siflinger, Bettina M. & Zimpelmann, Christian, 2020. "Labour Supply during Lockdown and a "New Normal": The Case of the Netherlands," IZA Discussion Papers 13623, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13623
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13623.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hamish Low & Michaela Benzeval & Jon Burton & Thomas F. Crossley & Paul Fisher & Annette Jäckle & Brendan Read, 2020. "The Idiosyncratic Impact of an Aggregate Shock The Distributional Consequences of COVID-19," Economics Series Working Papers 911, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2005. "Insurance within the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1054-1087, October.
    3. Annette Alstadsæter & Bernt Bratsberg & Gaute Eielsen & Wojciech Kopczuk & Simen Markussen & Oddbjorn Raaum & Knut Røed, 2020. "The First Weeks of the Coronavirus Crisis: Who Got Hit, When and Why? Evidence from Norway," NBER Working Papers 27131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Natalie Cox & Peter Ganong & Pascal Noel & Joseph Vavra & Arlene Wong & Diana Farrell & Fiona Greig & Erica Deadman, 2020. "Initial Impacts of the Pandemic on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from Linked Income, Spending, and Savings Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(2 (Summer), pages 35-82.
    5. Steffen Juranek & Jörg Paetzold & Hannes Winner & Floris Zoutman, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of Covid-19 in Sweden and Its Neighbors: Evidence from Novel Administrative Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 8473, CESifo.
    6. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    7. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2020. "COVID-19 Is Also a Reallocation Shock," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(2 (Summer), pages 329-383.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henri Bussink & Tobias Vervliet & Bas Weel, 2022. "The Short-Term Effect of the COVID-19 Crisis on Employment Probabilities of Labour-Market Entrants in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(2), pages 279-303, May.
    2. Tonatiuh Suárez-Meaney & Ioannis Chatziioannou & Héctor Daniel Reséndiz López & Luis Chias-Becerril & Efthimios Bakogiannis, 2023. "The Role of COVID-19 in Molding the Economy and Social Inequity of Mexican Households," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Balgová, Mária & Trenkle, Simon & Zimpelmann, Christian & Pestel, Nico, 2022. "Job search during a pandemic recession: Survey evidence from the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Bettina Siflinger & Michaela Paffenholz & Sebastian Seitz & Moritz Mendel & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker, 2021. "The COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health: Disentangling Crucial Channels," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2021_271, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Lauren Hoehn-Velasco & Adan Silverio-Murillo & Jose Roberto Balmori de la Miyar & Jacob Penglase, 2022. "The impact of the COVID-19 recession on Mexican households: evidence from employment and time use for men, women, and children," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 763-797, September.
    6. Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren & Silverio-Murillo, Adan & Balmori de la Miyar, Jose Roberto, 2021. "The long downturn: The impact of the great lockdown on formal employment," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    7. Zimpelmann, Christian & Gaudecker, Hans-Martin von & Holler, Radost & Janys, Lena & Siflinger, Bettina, 2021. "Hours and income dynamics during the Covid-19 pandemic: The case of the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. Palacios-Lopez,Amparo & Newhouse,David Locke & Pape,Utz Johann & Khamis,Melanie & Weber,Michael & Prinz,Daniel, 2021. "The Early Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries : Evidence from High-Frequency Phone Surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9510, The World Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Radost Holler & Lena Janys & Bettina Sifinger & Christian Zimpelmann, 2020. "Labour Supply during Lockdown and a “New Normal”: The Case of the Netherlands Abstract: We document the evolution of hours of work using monthly data from February to June 2020. During this period, th," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 025, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    2. Crossley, Thomas F. & Fisher, Paul & Low, Hamish, 2021. "The heterogeneous and regressive consequences of COVID-19: Evidence from high quality panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    3. Hensvik, Lena & Le Barbanchon, Thomas & Rathelot, Roland, 2021. "Job search during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Betcherman,Gordon & Giannakopoulos,Nicholas & Laliotis,Ioannis & Pantelaiou,Ioanna & Testaverde,Mauro & Tzimas,Giannis, 2020. "Reacting Quickly and Protecting Jobs : The Short-Term Impacts of the COVID-19 Lockdown on the Greek Labor Market," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9356, The World Bank.
    5. Bennedsen, Morten & Larsen, Birthe & Schmutte, Ian & Scur, Daniela, 2020. "Preserving job matches during the COVID-19 pandemic: firm-level evidence on the role of government aid," GLO Discussion Paper Series 588, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Veronika Penciakova & Nick Sander, 2020. "COVID-19 and SME Failures," IMF Working Papers 2020/207, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Veronika Penciakova & Nick Sander, 2021. "Fiscal Policy in the Age of COVID: Does it ‘Get in all of the Cracks?’," NBER Working Papers 29293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    9. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Veronika Penciakova & Nick Sander, 2020. "SME Failures Under Large Liquidity Shocks: An Application to the COVID-19 Crisis," NBER Working Papers 27877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Basso, Gaetano & Boeri, Tito & Caiumi, Alessandro & Paccagnella, Marco, 2020. "The New Hazardous Jobs and Worker Reallocation," IZA Discussion Papers 13532, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    12. Filippos Petroulakis, 2023. "Task Content and Job Losses in the Great Lockdown," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 586-613, May.
    13. Bisin, Alberto & Moro, Andrea, 2022. "Spatial‐SIR with network structure and behavior: Lockdown rules and the Lucas critique," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 370-388.
    14. Blanas, Sotiris & Oikonomou, Rigas, 2023. "COVID-induced economic uncertainty, tasks and occupational demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Alejandra Bellatin & Gabriela Galassi, 2022. "What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in Canada," Staff Working Papers 22-17, Bank of Canada.
    16. Holgersen, Henning & Jia, Zhiyang & Svenkerud, Simen, 2021. "Who and how many can work from home? Evidence from task descriptions," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 55, pages 1-4.
    17. Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Hansen, Stephen & Lambert, Peter John & Sadun, Raffaella & Taska, Bledi, 2023. "Remote work across jobs, companies and space," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121302, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Guido Matias Cortes & Eliza Forsythe, 2023. "Distributional impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the CARES Act," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(2), pages 325-349, June.
    19. Charlene Marie Kalenkoski & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2022. "Impacts of COVID-19 on the self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 741-768, February.
    20. Leonardo Fabio Morales & Leonardo Bonilla‐Mejía & Jose Pulido & Luz A. Flórez & Didier Hermida & Karen L. Pulido‐Mahecha & Francisco Lasso‐Valderrama, 2022. "Effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the Colombian labour market: Disentangling the effect of sector‐specific mobility restrictions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 308-357, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    essential workers; telecommuting; hours of work; labor hoarding; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13623. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.