Archive:Labour market in the light of the COVID 19 pandemic - quarterly statistics
This online publication contains articles on the impact of the of the Covid-19 pandemic on the labour market showing quarterly data.
Table of contents
1. Labour market slack
In the first quarter of 2020, the health crisis due to the COVID-19 hit the European Union, strongly affecting the economic life and the labour market. The lock-down implied a decrease and sometimes the complete shutdown of the enterprises activity. The consequences on the labour market might be considerable: people might have lost their employment, recruitments can be postponed or frozen, people can make a break in their job search for family reasons or reduced their working hours to involuntary part-time.
This article aims to capture the labour market slack that refers to all the unmet needs for employment during theses specific circumstances. Looking only at the development of the unemployment may give a reduced and partial overview of the impact of the COVID-crisis. As a matter of fact, people may not be able either being available or keep on searching a job, both are required to be recorded as unemployed people. In order to offer a complete picture and reflect the demand for employment, other categories inside or outside the labour force should be considered in addition to unemployment as the persons available to work but not seeking, the persons seeking but not immediately available as well as underemployed part-time workers, those part-time workers who want to work more hours. All these categories together constitute the labour market slack.
For comparability purpose, the concept of the labour force which only encompasses employed and unemployed people is extended to the categories of people available to work but not seeking or seeking but not immediately available, also named the additional potential labour force.