J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor

• On the Evolution of Multiple Jobholding in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2019-49 Olena Kostyshyna, Etienne Lalé

  The number of workers who hold more than one job (a.k.a. multiple jobholders) has increased recently in Canada. While this seems to echo the view that non-standard work arrangements are becoming pervasive, the increase has in fact been trivial compared with the long-run rise of multiple jobholding that has occurred since the mid-1970s.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21, J22, J6, J60

• The Intergenerational Correlation of Employment: Is There a Role for Work Culture?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-33 Gabriela Galassi, David Koll, Lukas Mayr

  We document a substantial positive correlation of employment status between mothers and their children in the United States, linking data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults. After controlling for ability, education and wealth, a one-year increase in a mother’s employment is associated with six weeks more employment of her child on average.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21, J22, J6, J62

• Online Job Seekers in Canada: What Can We Learn from Bing Job Queries?

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-18 André Binette, Karyne B. Charbonneau, Nicholas Curtis, Gabriela Galassi, Scott Counts, Justin Cranshaw

  Labour markets in Canada and around the world are evolving rapidly with the digital economy. Traditional data are adapting gradually but are not yet able to provide timely information on this evolution.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Labour markets, Monetary Policy JEL Code(s): C, C8, C80, E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21

• Local Labor Markets in Canada and the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2019-12 David Albouy, Alex Chernoff, Chandler Lutz, Casey Warman

  We examine local labor markets in the United States and Canada from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Labour markets JEL Code(s): J, J2, J21, J3, J31, J6, J61, N, N3, N32, R, R1, R12

• The Size and Characteristics of Informal (“Gig”) Work in Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-6 Olena Kostyshyna, Corinne Luu

  Underlying wage growth has fallen short of what would be consistent with an economy operating with little or no slack. While many factors could explain this weakness, the availability of additional labour resources from informal (“gig”) work—not fully captured in standard measures of employment and hours worked—may play a role.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E26, J, J2, J20, J3, J30, J4

• Inequality in Parental Transfers, Borrowing Constraints and Optimal Higher Education Subsidies

  Staff Working Paper 2019-7 Youngmin Park

  This paper studies optimal education subsidies when parental transfers are unequally distributed across students and cannot be publicly observed. After documenting substantial inequality in parental transfers among US college students with similar family resources, I examine its implications for how the education subsidy should vary with schooling level and family resources to minimize inefficiencies generated by borrowing constraints.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Fiscal Policy, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D6, D61, D64, D8, D82, I, I2, I22, J, J2, J24

• The State of Labour Market Churn in Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-4 Olena Kostyshyna, Corinne Luu

  The literature highlights that labour market churn, including job-to-job transitions, is a key element of wage growth. Using microdata from the Labour Force Survey, we compute measures of labour market churn and compare these with pre-crisis averages to assess implications for wage growth.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J20, J3, J30, J6, J63

• The Impacts of Minimum Wage Increases on the Canadian Economy

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-26 Dany Brouillette, Daniel Gao, Olivier Gervais, Calista Cheung

  This note reviews the channels through which scheduled minimum wage increases over the coming years may affect Canadian economic activity and inflation and assesses their macroeconomic impacts. From reduced-form estimates of direct minimum wage pass-through, we find that consumer price index (CPI) inflation could be boosted by about 0.1 percentage point (pp) on average in 2018.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21, J22, J23

• Wage Dynamics and Returns to Unobserved Skill

  Staff Working Paper 2017-61 Lance Lochner, Youngmin Park, Youngki Shin

  Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of unobserved skills, and (iii) changing volatility in wages due to factors unrelated to skills.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, J, J2, J24, J3, J31

• Labour Force Participation: A Comparison of the United States and Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-9 James Ketcheson, Natalia Kyui, Benoit Vincent

  This note explores the drivers behind the recent increase in the US participation rate in the labour market and assesses the likelihood of a similar gain in Canada. The growth in the US participation rate has largely been due to a pickup in the participation of prime-age workers following a post-recession decline.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21