2008 financial crisis. But a new study finds that the current crisis has hit the US economy even harder.In the working paper, Ippei Shibata of the International Monetary Fund uses US employment data to estimate the impact on jobs in various industries in both 2008 and 2020.
The study makes this comparison across worker demographics such as age, race and gender, job characteristics and wages. Shibata defines jobs that were allowed during the pandemic as “essential", those that need human interaction as “social" and those that could be done from home as “teleworkable".The study finds service sector jobs, especially in the leisure and hospitality sectors, were hit harder now than in 2008.