Why haven’t workers returned to the labor force after COVID-19?

Labor force participation plummeted by more than 3 percentage points during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, representing a decline of more than 8.2 million people. While about half of the drop was quickly regained, participation has stagnated at about 1 percentage point below its pre-pandemic level. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Louise Sheiner, policy director at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, interviews Lea Rendell of the University of Maryland, one of the coauthors of a new BPEA study that asks, simply, “Where are the missing workers?” Sheiner and Rendell discuss several possible explanations, including fear of COVID-19 and shifting work-life balance preferences. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

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The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity connects you to cutting edge economic policy research and the renowned economists who create it. On each episode, the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity editors introduce new BPEA research and present a conversation between the author and a Brookings scholar to bridge the divide between economic theory and practical policy solutions.