Abstract

The aim of this project is to analyse how the pandemic affected the labour market biographies of workers who became unemployed shortly before the start of the COVID-19 crisis. We hypothesise that compared to earlier years, the pandemic reduced the chances of re-employment in general. Moreover, we aim to assess whether and to what extent a negative impact on outcomes such as the probability of finding a job or the duration and remuneration of subsequent employment depend on an individal's previous occupation. As the pandemic had a stronger impact on some occupations, due to the nature of the tasks they contained and the extent to which they could be performed during lockdown, than on others, we expect that the effects were more pronounced for individuals who used to be employed in occupations that were more exposed to the pandemic. We aim to assess these hypotheses based on individual-level administrative data and by using a difference-in-differences estimation approach.