Recession and Umemployment in the OECD

Konjunkturelle Arbeitslosigkeit; Erwerbstätigkeit; Arbeitsmarktpolitik; Lebensqualität; OECD-Staaten

Regional unemployment in Scotland

One of the primary aims of the Eraser of Allander Institute is to try to form a detailed and consistent view of the structure of the Scottish economy. Disaggregation is an essential prerequisite to an appreciation of the diverse character of the Scottish economy. This article explores Scotland's first 'tier' of disaggregation under the new regional authority structure. Estimates of the numbers of employees in employment in the new regions for the period 1964 to 1973 have been made by the Department of Employment. These employment statistics provide one viewpoint from which can be formed a picture of the differing industrial structures in the regions, and the changes which have taken place in patterns of industrial activity over this period. The outstanding feature is the decline in employment in the Strathclyde region. Approximately 92,000 jobs have been lost there during this 10 year period. Nearly half of this decline has occurred in manufacturing industry. In contrast the Grampian and Highland regions have increased employment between 1964 and 1973. Their gains are concentrated in the manufacturing and service sectors. Although the employment figures for these regions support the view that the centre of economic activity in Scotland is moving north and east the figures for the other regions exhibit no clear spatial pattern. Fife gained approximately 4000 jobs between 1964 and 1973, while Tayside lost over 10,000. The Central region marginally increased its workforce, but around 17,000 jobs disappeared from the Lothians. The Borders lost over 1000 jobs but little net change was experienced in Dumfries and Galloway

US and UK Labour Markets before and during the Covid-19 Crash

We examine labour market performance in the US and the UK prior to the onset of the Covid-19 crash. We then track the changes that have occurred in the months and days from the beginning of March 2020 using what we call the Economics of Walking About (EWA) that shows a collapse twenty times faster and much deeper than the Great Recession. We examine unemployment insurance claims by state by day in the US as well as weekly national data. We track the distributional impact of the shock and show that already it is hitting the most vulnerable groups who are least able to work from home the hardest – the young, the least educated and minorities. We have no official labour market data for the UK past January but see evidence that job placements have fallen sharply. We report findings from an online poll fielded from 11–16 April 2020 showing that a third of workers in Canada and the US report that they have lost at least half of their income due to the Covid-19 crisis, compared with a quarter in the UK and 45 per cent in China. We estimate that the unemployment rate in the US is around 20 per cent in April. It is hard to know what it is in the UK given the paucity of data, but it has gone up a lot

The Lack of Wage Growth and the Falling NAIRU

In this note, we argue that a considerable part of the explanation for the benign wage growth in the advanced world is the rise in underemployment. In the years after 2008 the unemployment rate understates labour market slack. Underemployment is more important than unemployment in explaining the weakness of wage growth in the UK. The Phillips curve in the UK has now to be rewritten into wage underemployment space. Underemployment now enters wage equations while the unemployment rate does not. There is every reason to believe that the NAIRU has fallen sharply since the Great Recession. In our view the NAIRU in the UK may well be nearer to 3 per cent, and even below it, than around 5 per cent, which other commentators including the MPC and the OBR believe

Underemployment in the US and Europe

Large numbers of part-time workers around the world, both those who choose to be part-time and those who are there involuntarily and would prefer a full-time job report they want more hours. Full-timers who say they want to change their hours mostly say they want to reduce them. When recession hit in most countries the number of hours of those who said they wanted more hours, rose sharply and there was a fall in the number of hours that full-timers wanted their hours reduced by. Even though the unemployment rate has returned to its pre-recession levels in many advanced countries, underemployment in most has not. We produce estimates for a new, and better, underemployment rate for twenty-five European countries. In most underemployment remains elevated. We provide evidence for the UK and the US as well as some international evidence that underemployment rather than unemployment lowers pay in the years after the Great Recession. We also find evidence for the US that falls in the home ownership rate have helped to keep wage pressure in check. Underemployment replaces unemployment as the main influence on wages in the years since the Great Recession

Underemployment in the United States and Europe

The authors produce estimates for a new and better rate of underemployment for 25 countries using the European Labor Force Survey that is based on workers’ reports of their preferred hours at the going wage. Both voluntary and involuntary part-time workers report they want more hours. Full-time workers who say they want to change their hours, mostly say they want to reduce them. When the Great Recession hit, the number of hours of those who said they wanted more hours increased, and the number of hours of those who said they wanted fewer hours decreased. The percentage of workers in both categories remains elevated. The authors provide evidence for the United Kingdom and the United States as well as from an international sample that underemployment lowers pay in the years after the Great Recession, but the unemployment rate does not. They also find evidence for the United States that decreases in the home ownership rate have helped to keep wage pressure in check. Underemployment replaces unemployment as the main influence on wages in the years since the Great Recession

The well-being of the overemployed and the underemployed and the rise in depression in the UK

In this paper we build on our earlier work on underemployment using data from the UK. We focus on the effects on well-being of worker dissatisfaction with hours of work. We make use of five main measures of well-being: happiness; life satisfaction; whether life is worthwhile; anxiety and depression. The more that actual hours differ from preferred hours the lower is a worker's well-being. This is true for those who say they want more hours (the underemployed) and those who say they want less (the over employed). We find strong evidence of a rise in depression and anxiety in the years since the onset of austerity in 2010 in the UK that is not matched by declines in happiness measures. The fear of unemployment obtained from monthly surveys from the EU for the UK has also been on the rise since 2015. We report an especially large rise in anxiety and depression among workers in general and the underemployed in particular. The underemployed don't want to be underemployed

The Scottish economy [July 1975]

Scottish GDP in real terms increased in 1974, and our central estimate for this increase is £4106m at constant prices; this represents an increase of 0.8% over 1973. Modest though this is, in a year in which UK GDP as a whole actually declined it can be regarded with some satisfaction. Indeed our qualitative judgement is that the statistical forecast is, if anything on the conservative side, though as yet our forecasting methods are insufficiently developed to include these additional indicators of activity levels. Trends in GDP during the first quarter of 1975 are more difficult to predict

Summary [October 1975]

This brief paper summarises world, UK and Scottish economic conditions in the quarter to October 1975. The downward trend in production in the industrialised countries which took effect from about the middle of 1974 appears to have continued throughout the first half of 1975. While Japan experienced a slight rise in industrial production in the second quarter of this year, a general recovery of world trade appears to be waiting for unmistakable signs of recovery in economic activity in the United States. Evidence from the United States is conflicting, and therefore it seems unlikely that output in the industrialised countries will increase before the end of the year. These uncertainties may postpone recovery in the United Kingdom