Who will Bear the Brunt of Lockdown Policies? Evidence from Tele-workability Measures Across Countries

IMF Working Papers, June 12, 2020

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Canonical URL: Who will Bear the Brunt of Lockdown Policies? Evidence from Tele-workability Measures Across Countries

Presents a new index of the feasibility to work from home to investigate what types of jobs are most at risk under lockdowns.
Estimates that over 97.3 million workers, equivalent to about 15 percent of the workforce, are at high risk of layoffs and furlough across the 35 advanced and emerging countries in the sample.
Concludes that workers least likely to work remotely tend to be young, without a college education, working for non-standard contracts, employed in smaller firms, and those at the bottom of the earnings distribution.
Warns that the pandemic could exacerbate inequality given the concentration of tele-work infeasibility among lower-skilled and more vulnerable worker groups.

Workers less able to work remotely are:
- Young.
- Without a college education.
- Working under non-standard contracts.
- Employed in smaller firms.
- Located at the bottom of the earnings distribution.
Implication: Lockdown policies threaten employment and earnings of already disadvantaged groups, potentially widening inequality.

Differences in the ability to work remotely across countries reflect:
- Differential access to and use of technology.
- Sectoral mix of employment.
- Labor market selection effects.

Policies should account for demographic and distributional considerations both during the crisis and in its aftermath.
Implicit policy focus areas derived from findings:
- Targeted support for workers in jobs with low tele-workability (young, low-education, non-standard contracts, small firms, bottom earnings decile).
- Address digital access and technology use to improve tele-work feasibility where possible.
- Consider sectoral composition when designing labor market and fiscal support measures.

Authors: Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, Salma Khalid
Date: June 12, 2020
Subject tags included in source: Employment, Labor, Labor markets, Unemployment, Wages
Keywords included in source: COVID-19, Employment, foreign-born worker, Global, inequality, job content, Labor markets, occupation, trade worker, Unemployment, Wages, worker, worker characteristic, workers in SME, workers in the bottom decile, working remotely, WP

IMF Working Paper No. 2020/088 — Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, Salma Khalid; June 12, 2020.