Occupational Mix Research Articles

Occupational reallocation within and across firms: Implications for labor market polarization

This study analyzes how labor market frictions interact with firms’ decisions to reallocate workers across different occupations during labor market polarization. We compare the patterns of occupational reallocation within and across firms in the US and Germany in recent years. We find within-firm reallocation contributes significantly to the decline in employment in routine occupations in Germany, but much less so in the US. We construct a general equilibrium model of firm dynamics and find the model with different firing taxes can replicate the difference in firm-level adjustment patterns across these countries. We conduct two counterfactual experiments for each country, highlighting the different roles played by the within-firm cost of reorganizing the occupational mix and across-firm frictions created by firing taxes. The results suggest the latter plays a more significant role in labor market polarization. Higher firing costs lead to greater and faster polarization in the US.

Why Are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?

The authors investigate reasons unemployment insurance (UI) claims have declined dramatically over the past 3 decades. The fall is concerning because it suggests a reduced countercyclical effectiveness of the UI program. Additionally, weekly initial UI claims are an important leading indicator of aggregate economic activity, so their meaning has changed. The authors identify the main factors that changed with the decline in claims. Their procedure suggests what the level of claims would have been later in the period, had values of variables or parameters of the system been at levels observed earlier in the period. The analysis of state-year data suggests that the decline in UI claims stems largely from changes in the industrial and occupational mix of employment interacting with changes in UI program features set by individual states. This decline could be offset by federal rules for states to improve benefit access, replacement rates, and potential UI durations.

Measuring the impact of COVID-19 policies on local commute traffic: Evidence from mobile data in Northern California

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the world economy and significantly altered how people work by imposing limits on in-person interactions. The policy response in places like California illustrate a range of scenarios that are applicable more broadly, from stringent restrictions on travel to flexible directives. This study focuses on the impact of various policy instruments the State of California implemented on morning peak hour and home-based work traffic volume in the San Francisco Bay Area and California’s Central Valley. Previous studies have not been able to measure COVID-19′s impact on commute traffic at a sufficiently local level, nor have they tested the impact of policy instruments on local commute traffic. We fill this gap by using mobile-derived morning peak hour traffic volume data from StreetLight Insights along with census-based neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics to model neighborhood-level variation in morning traffic volume and distance traveled. Remote work, a policy the private sector initiated, had a more significant and lasting effect than state policy. Morning traffic volume did not recover in response to policies aiming to provide businesses and people greater flexibility and predictability, and while vaccination was associated with a recovery of morning peak hour and home-based traffic, that recovery was short of pre-COVID levels. The effect of remote work undergirds inequities in commute burden. Economic sectors deemed essential and lower-income workers saw the lowest decreases in commute traffic and fastest recovery. Policymakers and planners ought to consider the occupation mix as a key ingredient in understanding the impact of telework ability and takeup on future transportation infrastructure improvements across various regions.

The Life Cycle of Businesses and Their Internal Organization

We document new stylized facts on the occupational mix of businesses in the United States and how their internal organization evolves over their life cycles. Our main empirical finding is that younger businesses have fewer hierarchical layers and lower span of control than comparable older businesses do. Our results suggest that businesses become simultaneously more hierarchical and increase their managerial span of control over their life cycles. We show that this pattern is not entirely driven by selection or differences in size and is pervasive across cohorts and sectors.

Racial Disparity in COVID-19 Deaths: Seeking Economic Roots with Census Data

Abstract This note seeks the socio-economic roots of racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality, using monthly county-level mortality, economic, and demographic data from 3140 counties through December 2020. The county-level approach shows a sharp disparity affecting all minority groups in the sample, peaking in spring or summer 2020 and then dissipating by the end of autumn. The effect disappears for Asian Americans when occupation and other controls are added, but not for other minorities; for them, the racial disparity, as long as it lasts, does not seem to be due to differences in income, poverty rates, education, occupational mix, or even access to healthcare insurance, although in April public transit use explains a large part of it. This is a puzzle, but the rapid change in the disparities over the year show that they are not immutable – an important message for future pandemics.

State sponsors of terrorism disclosure and SEC financial reporting oversight

We examine whether SEC effort to review state sponsors of terrorism (SST) disclosure negatively influences financial reporting oversight. Using comment letter inquiries about SST to measure effort, we find the likelihood that the SEC fails to identify a financial reporting error increases when comment letters reference SST. Consistent with SST disclosure review crowding out financial reporting oversight, comment letters referencing SST are less likely to mention accounting, non-GAAP, and MD&A issues. These effects are unique to SST as we find comment letter references to non-SST issues complement financial reporting oversight. Data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals a temporal shift in the occupational mix of SEC reviewers towards (away from) lawyers (accountants) that coincides with an increased focus on SST. Path analysis reveals that accountants (lawyers) are more (less) likely to detect errors and comment on financial reporting topics, with an indirect path through SST exacerbating these effects.

The Long Shadow of Job Loss: Britain's Older Industrial Towns in the 21st Century.

This article takes a long view of economic change in Britain's older industrial towns, drawing on the authors' accumulated research into labor market trends in the places and communities most affected by deindustrialization. It begins by documenting the industrial job losses over the last 50 years and their impact on unemployment, economic inactivity and welfare benefit claims, highlighting the diversion onto incapacity benefits triggered by job loss that remains a major feature of the towns. It then looks at the evidence on the present-day labor market in the towns, identifying job growth at a slower pace than in the cities and continuing weaknesses in terms of earnings, qualifications and occupational mix. These are the on-going problems the authors describe as the ‘long shadow of job loss’. The evidence also shows that despite years of job loss, industry remains a key component of the towns' economy and that the towns are increasingly connected to surrounding areas, including nearby cities, by strong commuting flows.

Job Composition and Digital Technologies: Its Effect on UK Firms in the Digital Era

This paper studies how the adoption of digital technologies has changed the occupational structure of UK firms. Drawing on an employer-employee panel survey between 2004 and 2011 in the UK, this study shows that the effect of the firms’ routine exposure on labour markets varies when both the occupational mix and the adoption of digital technologies at firm-level are taken simultaneously into consideration. We conclude that the specialization in routine manual jobs without the appropriate technological adoption is not enough to generate positive effects of firms on labour markets, specifically in the manufacturing sector. However, routine cognitive jobs are a safe bet factor for firms even in the absence of digital technologies.

State Sponsors of Terrorism Disclosure and SEC Financial Reporting Oversight

We examine whether SEC effort to review state sponsors of terrorism (SST) disclosure negatively influences financial reporting oversight. Using comment letter inquiries about SST to measure effort, we find the likelihood that the SEC fails to identify a financial reporting error increases when comment letters reference SST. Consistent with SST disclosure review crowding out financial reporting oversight, comment letters referencing SST are less likely to mention accounting, non-GAAP, and MD&A issues. These effects are unique to SST as we find comment letter references to non-SST issues complement financial reporting oversight. Data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals a temporal shift in the occupational mix of SEC reviewers towards (away from) lawyers (accountants) that coincides with an increased focus on SST. Path analysis reveals that accountants (lawyers) are more (less) likely to detect errors and comment on financial reporting topics, with an indirect path through SST exacerbating these effects.

Occupational Classes, Information Technologies, and the Wage

Occupational classifications mix epistemic and social notions of class in interesting ways that show not only the descriptive but also the prescriptive uses of documentality. In this paper, I would like to discuss how occupational classes have shifted from being a priori to being a posteriori documentary devices for both describing and prescribing labor. Post-coordinate indexing and algorithmic documentary systems must be viewed within post-Fordist constructions of identity and capitalism’s construction of social sense by the wage if we are to have a better understanding of digital labor. In post-Fordist environments, documentation and its information technologies are not simply descriptive tools but are at the center of struggles of capital’s prescription and direction of labor. Just like earlier documentary devices but even more prescriptively and socially internalized, information technology is not just a tool for users but rather is a device in the construction of such users and what they use (and are used by) at the level of their very being.

Effects of Reduced Workplace Presence on COVID-19 Deaths: An Instrumental-Variables Approach

Background: A wide range of government policies in the face of COVID-19 have attempted to encourage workers to stay away from their regular workplace, on the assumption that this will lower transmission of the virus. This study attempts to evaluate that assumption. It attempts to measure the effect of absence from the workplace in the aggregate on COVID deaths at the county level in the US up to the end of August.Methods: A major difficulty is the reverse-causation problem: outbreaks can cause people to stay home. We use an instrumental-variables strategy to deal with this, using an index of how many local workers pre-pandemic would be able to work from home based on differences in occupational mix across counties. We display four specifications and find strong support for a PPML formulation with the IV and time-varying effects.Findings: We find no discernable effect of workplace absence on deaths until mid-May. After that we find a sharply rising effect. At the end of our sample we find that moving 10 percent of workers in a county out of the workplace would lower deaths there by two thirds one month later.Interpretation: These results provide strong support for policies to move workers out of the workplace where possible when COVID cases are expected to be widespread.Funding: The authors used only existing general research funds for this project.Declaration of Interests: Both authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Bridging the Gap: Integrated Occupational and Industrial Approach to Understand the Regional Economic Advantage

In the debates on regional economic analysis, scholars generally reach the consensus that the industrial frame and the occupational mix are not very accurate substitutes for each other. While industry concentration and mix are widely accepted as significant, the independent consideration of occupation has been shown to be important, especially for creativity-concentrated regions. However, neither the industrial nor the occupational mix is separately sufficient to be solely applied to understand the entire regional situation. This paper develops an integrated occupational and industrial structure (IOIS) at the state and also the national level in order to bridge the gap between separate industrial and occupational analytic results. The case of California is used to demonstrate that the integrated approach is a more effective way than either the single occupational or industrial analysis. The further application of this approach to data for the fifty states provides a general view of joint occupational and industrial development across the nation. This approach further links the occupational approach and the industrial development together by providing a new way to measure and identify the regional comparative difference to be able to implement more fruitful policy-making decisions.

Do Labor Demand Shifts Occur Within Firms or Across Them? Non-Routine-Biased Technological Change, 2000-2016

A large literature has documented occupational shifts in the US away from routine intensive tasks. Theories of skill-biased technological change differ in whether they predict changes in occupational mix within firms, or merely across different firms or industries. Using LinkedIn resume records, BLS OES data, and Compustat employee counts, we estimate occupational employment for publicly traded US firms from 2000 through 2016. We find that faster employment growth among firms that disproportionately employ non-routine workers is the most important cause of SBTC, followed by within firm occupational mix rebalancing. The entry of new firms also plays a role, although firm exit is slightly routine-worker biased. R&D leads firms to have a larger share of routine workers. These results are most consistent with a theory of routine task demand reduction caused by the diffusion of infra-marginally implemented new technologies. We also introduce a new measure of business labor dynamism, capturing the frequency with which firms change their occupational mix. Consistent with trends in productivity and other measures of business and labor market dynamism, this measure has decreased steadily since 2000.

Changes in the Occupational Structure of the United States: 1860 to 2015

This Commentary describes how the mix of occupations in which people have been employed in the United States has evolved over time. After 100 years of dramatic change, the mix of occupations has been more stable since 1970. This trend adds occupational structure to the growing list of ways our nation’s economy has become less dynamic in recent decades.

Skill up: smart work, occupational mix and regional productivity

New technologies and sector imbalances due to manufacturing hollowing out have dented the regional stock of competencies in the European Union (EU) labour markets. This raises concerns over the sustainability of the EU’s competitiveness in the longer term. The present study explore on what occupational mix might be able to deliver greater regional productivity in the light of emerging industrial dynamics. We estimate panel regression models using regional data from the EU Labour Force Survey and Eurostat regional statistics. Our results show that regional gross value added (GVA) is significantly improved if regions have a mix of occupations that includes what we define as smart workers: these are workers employed in advanced manufacturing and knowledge-based production-support activities. We also test interactions amongst production and production-support occupations as well as the nonlinear effect between smart workers and regional GVA. Policy implications are discussed.

Occupational balance as described by older workers over the age of 65

ABSTRACTOccupational balance promotes health, knowledge about occupational balance among older workers is important. This qualitative study aimed to describe occupational balance among older workers in Sweden. Six focus groups and two individual interviews were conducted with 26 workers, aged 65 years and older. The findings showed that drawing on abilities and resources, a harmonious mix of occupations, as well as congruence with values and personal meaning contributed to the participants’ occupational balance. From a work perspective, organizational factors such as support from managers and having the freedom to influence work tasks, as well as work time, also contributed to occupational balance. The participants changed their occupational pattern to achieve a more harmonious mix of occupations. This change was based on values and experience derived through the meaning of occupations, and on abilities and resources. Enabling older people to achieve occupational balance and promoting health may contribute to possibilities for an extended working life and active ageing.

Global engagement and the occupational structure of firms

Global engagement can impact firm organization and the occupations firms need. We use a simple task-based model of the firm's choice of occupational inputs to examine how that choice varies with global engagement. We reveal a robust and causal relationship between global engagement and the skill mix of occupations within firms, using Swedish matched employer-employee data that link firms and the labor force for 1997–2005. Taking an instrumental variable approach, we find that increased export shares (driven by higher world import demand) skew the labor mix more toward high-skill occupations. Our results suggest that global engagement may require firms to employ more skilled labor to undertake complex tasks embodied in international businesses, which have further implications for the demand for specific occupational skills and overall wage dispersion.

Man-cessions, fiscal policy, and the gender composition of employment

Recessions are man-cessions, as men are disproportionately exposed to cyclical employment fluctuations. We provide evidence that fiscal expansions stimulate predominantly female employment implying a further destabilization of the gender composition of employment in recessions. Our findings can be understood as a consequence of differences in the industry–occupation mix of employment by gender.

Inter-sectoral labor reallocation in the short run: The role of occupational similarity

This paper shows that inter-sectoral labor reallocation is affected by the similarity of the occupational mix of industries within a local labor market. We develop a theory-based measure of occupational similarity between industries and show how geographic proximity to industries using similar occupations raises the ability of an industry to respond to aggregate shocks. Using data on the employment growth of region-industry pairs in the U.S., we confirm empirically that an industry's employment responds more to nationwide changes in regions where industries have access to a relatively large pool of the occupations they need. Imputing U.S. data to our model, we show that the short-run gains from trade resulting from terms of trade movements are significantly lower than in a model where workers move freely between occupations and regions. We also find that the sensitivity of employment to economic shocks differs widely across U.S. industries, from a low sensitivity in agriculture to a high sensitivity in wholesale trade.

Hospital Nursing Workforce Costs, Wages, Occupational Mix,and Resource Utilization.

The objective of the study was to better understand how hospitals use different types of RNs, LPNs, and nurse aides in proprietary (for-profit), nonprofit, and government-owned hospitals and to estimate the wages, cost, and intensity of nursing care using a national data set. This is a cross-sectional observational study of 3,129 acute care hospitals in all 50 states and District of Columbia using data from the 2008 Occupational Mix Survey administered by the Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services (CMS). Nursing skill mix, hours, and labor costs were combined with other CMS hospital descriptive data, including type of hospital ownership, urban or rural location, hospital beds, and case-mix index. RN labor costs make up 25.5% of all hospital expenditures annually, and all nursing labor costs represent 30.1%, which is nearly a quarter trillion dollars ($216.7 billion) per year for inpatient nursing care. On average, proprietary hospitals employ 1.3 RNs per bed and 1.9 nursing personnel per bed in urban hospitals compared with 1.7 RNs per bed and 2.3 nursing personnel per bed for nonprofit and government-owned hospitals (P G .05). States with higher ratios of RN compared with LPN licenses used fewer LPNs in the inpatient setting. The findings from this study can be helpful in comparing nursing care across different types of hospitals, ownership, and geographic locations and used as a benchmark for future nursing workforce needs and costs.