IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27243.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Adverse Effect of the COVID-19 Labor Market Shock on Immigrant Employment

Author

Listed:
  • George J. Borjas
  • Hugh Cassidy

Abstract

Employment rates in the United States fell dramatically between February 2020 and April 2020 as the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe for immigrants. Historically, immigrant men were more likely to be employed than native men. The COVID-related labor market disruptions eliminated the immigrant employment advantage. By April 2020, immigrant men had lower employment rates than native men. Part of the relative increase in the immigrant rate of job loss arises because immigrants were less likely to work in jobs that could be performed remotely and suffered disparate employment consequences as the lockdown permitted workers with more “remotable” skills to continue their work from home. Undocumented men were particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with their rate of job loss far exceeding the rate of job loss of legal immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • George J. Borjas & Hugh Cassidy, 2020. "The Adverse Effect of the COVID-19 Labor Market Shock on Immigrant Employment," NBER Working Papers 27243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27243
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27243.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Couch, Kenneth A. & Fairlie, Robert W. & Xu, Huanan, 2020. "The Impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Unemployment: First Evidence from April 2020 CPS Microdata," IZA Discussion Papers 13264, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Arash Nekoei, 2013. "Immigrants' Labor Supply and Exchange Rate Volatility," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 144-164, October.
    4. Laura Montenovo & Xuan Jiang & Felipe Lozano Rojas & Ian M. Schmutte & Kosali I. Simon & Bruce A. Weinberg & Coady Wing, 2020. "Determinants of Disparities in Covid-19 Job Losses," NBER Working Papers 27132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Amy Hsin & Francesc Ortega, 2018. "The Effects of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on the Educational Outcomes of Undocumented Students," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(4), pages 1487-1506, August.
    6. Fang, Hanming & Wang, Long & Yang, Yang, 2020. "Human mobility restrictions and the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    7. George J. Borjas, 2020. "Demographic Determinants of Testing Incidence and COVID-19 Infections in New York City Neighborhoods," NBER Working Papers 26952, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hugh Cassidy, 2019. "Occupational Attainment of Natives and Immigrants: A Cross-Cohort Analysis," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 375-409.
    9. Pinka Chatterji & Yue Li, 2020. "Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Outpatient Providers in the US," NBER Working Papers 27173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Francisca Antman, 2017. "Schooling and labor market effects of temporary authorization: evidence from DACA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 339-373, January.
    11. Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2012. "Tasks and Heterogeneous Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 1-53.
    12. Christoph Albert, 2017. "The Labor Market Impact of Undocumented Immigrants: Job Creation vs. Job Competition," CESifo Working Paper Series 6575, CESifo.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Borjas, George J. & Cassidy, Hugh, 2019. "The wage penalty to undocumented immigration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Brandily, Paul & Brébion, Clément & Briole, Simon & Khoury, Laura, 2020. "A Poorly Understood Disease? The Unequal Distribution of Excess Mortality Due to COVID-19 Across French Municipalities," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 15/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    4. Rebecca Brough & Matthew Freedman & David C. Phillips, 2021. "Understanding socioeconomic disparities in travel behavior during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 753-774, September.
    5. Brandily, Paul & Brébion, Clément & Briole, Simon & Khoury, Laura, 2021. "A poorly understood disease? The impact of COVID-19 on the income gradient in mortality over the course of the pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    6. Kenneth A. Couch & Robert W. Fairlie & Huanan Xu, 2023. "Racial disparities in unemployment during the COVID‐19 pandemic and recovery: The “stubborn,” the “hiccup,” and the “stall”," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 480-495, July.
    7. Borja Gambau & Juan C. Palomino & Juan G. Rodríguez & Raquel Sebastian, 2022. "COVID-19 restrictions in the US: wage vulnerability by education, race and gender," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(25), pages 2900-2915, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    10. Hamman, Mary K., 2021. "Disparities in COVID-19 mortality by county racial composition and the role of spring social distancing measures," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    11. Marinescu, Ioana & Skandalis, Daphné & Zhao, Daniel, 2021. "The impact of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation on job search and vacancy creation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    12. Couch, Kenneth A. & Fairlie, Robert W. & Xu, Huanan, 2020. "Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    13. Armagan Gezici & Ozge Ozay, 2020. "An Intersectional Analysis of COVID-19 Unemployment," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 270-281, December.
    14. Wei Cheng & Patrick Carlin & Joanna Carroll & Sumedha Gupta & Felipe Lozano Rojas & Laura Montenovo & Thuy D. Nguyen & Ian M. Schmutte & Olga Scrivner & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing & Bruce Weinberg, 2020. "Back to Business and (Re)employing Workers? Labor Market Activity During State COVID-19 Reopenings," NBER Working Papers 27419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Chen, Zhuo & Li, Pengfei & Liao, Li & Liu, Lu & Wang, Zhengwei, 2024. "Assessing and addressing the coronavirus-induced economic crisis: Evidence from 1.5 billion sales invoices," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. Wang, Jia & Winters, John V. & Yuan, Weici, 2022. "Can legal status help unauthorized immigrants achieve the American dream? Evidence from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    17. Belot, Michèle & Choi, Syngjoo & Tripodi, Egon & Van den Broek-Altenburg, Eline & Jamison, Julian C. & Papageorge, Nicholas, 2020. "Unequal Consequences of Covid 19 across Age and Income: Representative Evidence from Six Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 14908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2021. "Welfare costs of COVID‐19: Evidence from US counties," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 826-848, September.
    19. Blanas, Sotiris & Oikonomou, Rigas, 2023. "COVID-induced economic uncertainty, tasks and occupational demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    20. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    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:nbr:nberwo:27243. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.