The 2020 coronavirus outbreak has sparked severe shocks to the United States labor market. Social distancing policies, designed to slow the spread of the disease, are leading to large layoffs in specific industries, like bars and restaurants. Many more employees in other sectors face the prospect of unemployment or temporary furloughs. Despite this economic strain, employers, particularly those in Medical and Supply Chain services, are expanding to meet new demand. These sectors continue to post job opportunities long after policymakers mandated the closure of non-essential services or issued “shelter-in-place” orders.

Evidence from Texas over the past half-month reveals both predictable and unexpected trends in new job opportunities. It may come as a surprise that, even in this “lockdown economy,” there is still help wanted.

Beginning on March 18th, Texas began implementing statewide social distancing policies, though some areas began issuing such orders days earlier. Cities and counties across the state gradually adopted “shelter-in-place” orders in March.  By March 31st, a statewide order asked residents to stay home, except if they participated in “essential services and activities.”

But within the past two weeks, Texas employers posted over 66,000 new job openings.

Daily job postings are one indicator of up-to-date labor market demand, available from a variety of sources (most notably online).  The Texas Workforce Commission (“TWC”) is the state agency responsible for managing and providing workforce development services to employers and potential employees in Texas.  One service the TWC provides is access to databases of up-to-date job postings for different occupations and employers within the state. These job postings can come from the TWC itself, or from third party sites like Monster or Indeed. This information is extraordinarily valuable to data scientists.

The top 10 in demand occupations cover a variety of occupations, but are heavily concentrated in the healthcare, supply chain, and IT sectors.

Given the stresses to the healthcare system, its little surprise that hospitals are looking for more front-line staff. Registered Nurses were the highest in demand occupation, with over 3,000 new job listings since March 23rd.

Retail supply chains are also expanding employment.  Sales Representatives for Wholesalers and Manufacturers, with over 2,300 new listings, was the second highest in demand occupation. Other logistical occupations saw large numbers of new openings, particularly for Truck Drivers, with over 1,200 new job postings since March 23rd.

Anecdotally, supermarkets and retail chains have been hiring more employees to meet increased demand for groceries and other supplies. Evidence from jobs posted since March 23rd would support this finding, with large increases in new listings for Customer Service Representatives (over 1,700), Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers (over 1,600), and Retail Salespersons (also over 1,600).

Finally, with the increase in service sector employees working from home, it should not be surprise that IT workers are also in high demand. Application Developers (over 2,100 new listings) and employees for general Computer Occupations (with 1,800 new listings) have both seen large increases in openings since March 23rd.

EmployStats will be closely monitoring daily job postings as the coronavirus outbreak continues.

1. Impact Ratio Analysis (IRA) is still important to the OFCCP’s workforce analyses.  The 80% rule is still a tool.  However, the current compliance manual requires that a more holistic approach using statistical analysis and the calculation of standard deviations, be used in the final analysis and during the investigation.

2. Ethnic and sub group analysis is becoming more and more important.  The diversification of the U.S. workforce is creating a situation where smaller racial or ethnic groups are now large enough to study (2% rule)

3. Pre-Employment background checks can be used with care.  Employers should ensure that criminal history checks are germane and relevant to the jobs at issue.  Guidance on credit history checks is expected in the coming months.

4. Military Vet. goals and more guidance are expected in March 2014.  Some guidance was provided in 2013.

 Plus one take away…

It is amazing how far and wide the concepts of statistical significance have traveled over the last 20 years.  The OFCCP compliance officers were conversant in the concepts as well as small and large sample ratio statistical tests.  20 years ago these concepts were just making there way out for public consumption.