Jobs During the Pandemic: Re-Evaluating the Importance of Teleworkability, Contact-Intensity, and Being 'Essential'

Nina Zi Wei Low

Pareto Undergraduate Journal of New Economists

Vol. 2 No. 1, Issue 2024

pp. 43 - pp. 59

Abstract

This paper investigates the shock to labour demand from the government’s large-scale emergency policy response to COVID-19. A primary goal being to identify which occupational characteristics elicit significant responses to COVID-19 policy. A secondary goal was to evaluate the allocation efficiency of federal business assistance programs during COVID-19. This paper utilizes high-frequency Canadian online job postings data provided by the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC) in a Random Effects regression framework. This paper finds that occupations classified as teleworkable or essential experienced a decrease in labour demand during the pandemic. This non-intuitive result could be attributable to the assumption that COVID-19 and its policies only influence labour demand changes from a business feasibility perspective.

Nina graduated from UTM in 2023 completing a degree in Economics and Psychology. Nina was a star student and the recipient of numerous academic awards including: UTM Founders Gold Medal 2023, UofT Excellence Award 2023, and the UTM Student Recognition Award of Achievement 2022. She has been an active member of the undergraduate research community taking part as a research assistant, project manager, and independent researcher with the Bank of Canada. In her final year of undergraduate study she completed her dissertation on economic policy during the Covid-19 pandemic. This work was the basis for the high quality article we have included in this edition. Post-graduation, she worked with Professor Philip Oreopoulos as a research assistant to find an affordable and scalable solution to the two-sigma problem. She will complete her Master's in Economics at the University of Toronto in 2025. Nina would like to thank her mentors and collaborators from the University of Toronto, namely Prof. Oreopoulos, Prof. Souza-Rodrigues and Prof. Zammit.

About the Author

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Nina Zi Wei Low - z.low@utoronto.ca