How Has Labor Demand Been Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Job Ads in Mexico

Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez, Gerardo Esquivel, Raquel Y. Badillo
2021 Latin American Economic Review  
There is a concern among social scientists and policymakers that the COVID-19 crisis might permanently change the nature of work. We study how labor demand in Mexico has been affected during the pandemic by web scraping job ads from a leading job search website. As in the U.S., the number of vacancies in Mexico declined sharply during the lockdown (38 percent). In April there was a change in the composition of labor demand, and wages dropped across the board. By May, however, the wage
more » ... on and the distribution of job ads by occupation returned to their pre-pandemic levels. Overall, there was a slight decline in specific requirements (gender and age), no change in required experience, and a temporary increase in demand for low-skilled workers. Contrary to expectations, opportunities for telecommuting diminished during the pandemic. Using a simple Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we find that the variation in the average advertised wage in April is explained more by a higher proportion of low-wage occupations than by a reduction in the wages paid for particular occupations. In sum, we find no evidence of a significant or permanent change in labor demand during the pandemic in Mexico.
doi:10.47872/laer-2021-30-1 fatcat:7oq5t37uwzhd7dm3mln6zks3c4