BLS WORKING PAPERS

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics

An Update on Employment changes by employer size during the COVID-19

pandemic: a look at the Current Employment Statistics survey microdata

Michael Dalton

Elizabeth Weber Handwerker

Mark A. Loewenstein

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Working Paper 532

December 16, 2020
An Update on Employment changes by employer size during the

COVID-19 pandemic: a look at the Current Employment

Statistics survey microdata∗

Michael Dalton†, Elizabeth Weber Handwerker†, Mark A. Loewenstein†

December 16, 2020

Abstract

This paper expands on previous work analyzing employment changes by employer size during the

pandemic by incorporating additional months of new data (October and November 2020) and examining job loss by both employer size class and detailed industries. Continuing trends observed since

mid-summer, we observe continued faster job recovery among large employers than among smaller

employers. Furthermore, establishments of large employers known to have multiple establishments

have fared better than large employers with only a single-establishment. Within small employers,

we find that employment loss due to closures has declined only a small amount since July, going

from 2.8% to 2.3% in November. For large employers, employment loss due to closures has been

less than 1% since June.

JEL codes: E24, J21, J23, J63

Keywords: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Recession, Closures, Unemployment, Employment, Employer Size

† Bureau of Labor Statistics

Contact author: dalton.michael@bls.gov

1
1 Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a sudden and dramatic impact on the labor market, and is

associated with unprecedented job losses in all areas of the United States and across a variety of

industries. This paper expands on previous work by incorporating two additional months of new

data (October and November 2020) and examining job loss by both employer size class and detailed

industries1. Continuing trends observed since mid-summer, large employers are experiencing faster

job recovery than smaller employers. Furthermore, establishments of large employers known to have

multiple establishments have fared better than large employers with only a single establishment.

Within small employers, we find that employment loss due to closures has remained fairly steady

since July, suggesting that these losses may reflect permanent closures. By industry, job loss among

smaller employers was greatest in arts, entertainment and recreation industries as well as in retail

trade industries. Job loss was largest for smaller employers relative to larger employers in retail

trade industries. Smaller employers had better employment outcomes relative to larger employers

in construction industries.

2 New October and November Data updating job losses estimates

by employer size

This analysis follows the same methodology as described in Dalton, Handwerker and Loewenstein

(2020), using the microdata from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey to create estimates of job loss by employer size at the end of 2019. To simplify the analysis, we group all

establishments that are part of employers that had no more than 499 employers in 2019 into one

category. Furthermore, we combine our estimates for closures observed in the CES microdata and

for imputed closures from nonresponding establishments into a single estimate of employment loss

due to closures. The CES microdata do not allow us to identify which closures are permanent and

which closures are only temporary. Our estimates do not include any employment in establishments

that have opened since February 2020. One point of interest during the pandemic has been what

has occurred with large multi-establishment employers as compared to single establishments. For

that reason, we separate out the employment change for multiunit employers with employment

above 500, where a multiunit employer is defined as having more than one establishment with the

same Employer tax ID number2. Figure 1 depicts the employment loss since February 2020 for each

employer size category, broken down by the two components that sum to the total employment loss

– employment loss for continuing establishments and employment loss due to closures.

Figure 1 shows that for both groups of large employers, defined as having employment of 500

or greater at the end of 2019 across all establishments reporting to the Unemployment Insurance

1Michael Dalton, Elizabeth Weber Handwerker, and Mark A. Loewenstein, "Employment changes by employer size during

the COVID-19 pandemic: a look at the Current Employment Statistics survey microdata," Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau

of Labor Statistics, October 2020, https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2020.23.

2

In BLS data, an EIN does not always correspond to a firm. There are many examples in which individual plants of multi-unit

companies report their employment to the Unemployment Insurance system using different Employer tax ID numbers (EINs).

2
System with a common Employer tax ID number, employment loss due to closures has reflected only

a small amount of employment loss across the months. For large, multi-establishment employers,

employment loss due to closures peaked in May at 1% and is down to .6% in November. For large

single-establishment employers, employment loss due to closures never never rose above .4%.

For small employers, defined as having employment of less than 500 in 2019 across all establishments reporting to the Unemployment Insurance System with a common Employer tax ID number,

employment loss due to closures has been larger. Employment loss due to closures peaked in April

at 7.1% and was 2.3% in November, down .3% from October. Note, however, that this percentage has not improved much since the 2.8% observed in July. This may reflect that some small

establishments have permanently closed since July, though that cannot be confirmed in CES data.

As of November, employment declines at continuing establishments resulted in a 3.2% job loss

at small businesses. Employment loss at continuing establishments has continued to abate notably

for both small and large employers since July. This contrasts with employment loss due to closures,

which, as noted above, has abated only minimally for small businesses since July.

Figure 2 shows the total employment loss (equal to the sum of the two components) for each

size group. For the smaller size class, employment quickly dipped to an 18.6% loss in April, but

then quickly improved, more than halving the loss by July (7.9%). Since July, small employers

have recovered about a third of the remaining employment loss, and by November had lost 5.6%

of their February employment. For larger single-unit employers, employment losses were smaller

in the spring, but did not begin to recover until mid-summer. More than half of the job losses in

July (8.7%) have now been recovered by November (4.0%). Large multi-unit employers followed

a similar pattern to the single-unit large employers, though experiencing a comparatively smaller

employment decline each month. Like large single-unit employers, the employment loss of large

multi-unit peaked in May (9.5%). Over two thirds of the employment loss in July (6.1%), has been

recovered as of November (1.4%). For both large single and multi-unit employers, there has thus

been an acceleration of job recovery since July for that is not seen for smaller employers.

3 Detailed Industry Estimates

Relying again on the same methodology as Dalton, Handwerker, and Loewenstein (2020), we now

produce estimates for small and large employer sizes by 4-digit NAICS industry code. For this

section, we combine the large employers into a single category. To ensure reliable estimates and

respondent confidentiality, we restrict the presentation of results to industries with at least 50

observations as of November in the displayed size class. There are 199 unique 4-digit industries

with at least 50 observations in the small size class. An additional 4 industries are not reported

because our overall employment loss estimates for these industries in September were more than 15

percentage points different from official published CES estimates3. Tables 3 and 4 only include the

150 4-digit industries that have at least 50 observations in both the small and large size classes.

3Published industry-level estimates of employment by industry from the CES survey can be found at

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm and https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/ce/

3
Table 1 shows small and large employer percentage employment losses in November for the 25

industries with the largest losses since February for small employers. The biggest losses were for

performing arts companies (47%), travel arrangement and reservation services (39%), special food

services (33%), other transit and ground passenger transportation (32%), and motion picture and

video industries (30%). Of the worst-off 25 industries, 5 are in the arts, entertainment, recreation

sector and 3 are in the retail sector.

Restaurants (NAICS code 7225) have been the subject of a great deal of public concern during

the pandemic-recession. Using cellphone data, Crane et al. estimate that about 12 percent of

restaurants had permanently closed in 2020 by August, higher than the ordinary restaurant closure

rate of 8 percent4. We estimate that as of November, the cumulative job losses in restaurant

employers with fewer than 500 employees is 12.9%. This is lower than our estimates for the smaller

employers in the industries appearing in Table 1, so restaurants do not appear in the table. Based on

published CES employment estimates from February through October, total restaurant employment

(small and large employers) has gone from 10.9 million to 9.5 million, a 13% overall decline. For

the 25 industries shown in Table 1, total employment (small and large employers) in published CES

estimates has gone from 10.3 million in February to 7.7 million in October, a 25% decline. We

estimate that among restaurant employers with fewer than 500 employees, 26% of employment loss

is due to closures, and 74% is due to employment reductions in establishments that are open in

November. By way of contrast, drinking places (NAICS code 7224) with fewer than 500 employees

had lost 27.9% of their February employment by November, and 47% of that employment loss was

due to closures.

Table 2 shows small and large employer percentage employment changes in November for the

25 industries where these cumulative gains were the largest (or losses smallest) since February for

small employers. The biggest improvements were for highway, street, and bridge construction (17%),

lawn and garden equipment and supplies stores (6%), services to buildings and dwellings (5%), farm

product raw material merchant wholesalers (4%), and other specialty trade contractors (4%). Of

the 25 industries with the most growth, 6 are in the manufacturing sector, 3 of which are in food

manufacturing.

Table 3 shows the 25 industries where smaller employers have had the greatest job losses, relative to large employers in the same industry. Small employers are doing the worst relative to

large employers in couriers and express delivery services (-44% difference), travel arrangement and

reservation services (-31% difference), warehousing and storage (-21% difference), building material

and supplies dealers (-18% difference), and home furnishings stores (-18% difference). Of the 25

industries with the worst relative job losses, 7 are in the retail sector.

Table 4 shows the 25 industries where smaller employers have the smallest job losses (or largest

job gains) relative to large employers in the same industry. Small employers are doing the best

relative to large employers in other amusement and recreation industries (20% difference), civic and

4Crane, Leland D., Ryan A. Decker, Aaron Flaaen, Adrian Hamins-Puertolas, and Christopher Kurz (2020). “Business Exit

During the COVID-19 Pandemic: NonTraditional Measures in Historical Context,” Finance and Economics Discussion Series

2020-089. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2020.089 .

4
social organizations (17% difference), services to buildings and dwellings (13% difference), printing

and related support activities (11% difference), and educational support services (10% difference).

Of the 25 industries with the least relative job losses, 5 are in construction and 4 are in the other

services.

4 Conclusion

In this update to our earlier work, we show that employment recovery since July has accelerated for

large employers relative to small employers. We also find that large multi-establishment employers

have had a smaller employment decline each month than large single-establishment employers.

Furthermore, employment loss due to closures for small employers has remained mostly stagnant

since July, with the result that about 42% of lost employment within smaller employers was due to

closures as of November. Although the CES microdata do not allow us to identify which closures

are permanent and which closures are only temporary, many of these closures may have become

permanent, making it difficult for these jobs to quickly return.

We also extend our analysis to examine the variation in patterns of job loss by industry. Small

employers in the retail sector appear to be struggling the most relative to large employers within

the same sector, whereas small employers in the construction sector are doing well compared with

large employers.

5
Figure 1: Percentage Employment Change by Component since February 2020. Current Employment Statistics survey

6
Figure 2: Percentage Employment Change since February 2020. Current

Employment Statistics survey.

7
Table 1: The 25 Industries with the Biggest Employment Loss for Small Employers as of November 2020, Relative to February 2020 (CES)

4-Digit NAICS Title

[4-digit NAICS code]

Percentage Employment Change as of

November 2020 Relative to February 2020 for

Small employers Large employers

[Emp. Size: 1-499] [Emp. Size: 500+]

Performing Arts Companies [7111] -46.8 **

Travel Arrangement and Reservation

Services [5615]

-38.6 -7.3

Special Food Services [7223] -33.0 -22.4

Other Transit and Ground Passenger

Transportation [4859]

-32.5 **

Motion Picture and Video Industries

[5121]

-30.1 -24.0

Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)

[7224]

-27.9 **

Traveler Accommodation [7211] -24.7 -19.7

Civic and Social Organizations [8134] -21.6 -38.4

Independent Artists, Writers, and

Performers [7115]

-20.9 **

Commercial and Industrial Machinery

and Equipment Rental and Leasing

[5324]

-20.7 -3.1

Cut and Sew Apparel Manufacturing

[3152]

-20.1 **

Support Activities for Mining [2131] -19.9 -27.8

Other Schools and Instruction [6116] -19.7 **

Drycleaning and Laundry Services

[8123]

-19.2 -13.5

School and Employee Bus Transportation [4854]-19.1 **

Fabric Mills [3132] -18.2 **

Clothing Stores [4481] -17.9 -4.7

Shoe Stores [4482] -17.8 -5.4

Other Amusement and Recreation Industries [7139]

-16.4 -36.3

Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions [7121]-16.2 **

Gambling Industries [7132] -15.7 **

Support Activities for Air Transportation [4881]-15.6 -19.3

Florists [4531] -15.5 **

Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions

Merchant Wholesalers [4243]

-14.4 -12.6

Child Day Care Services [6244] -13.9 -17.0

** means there was insufficient sample size to publish the number.

8
Table 2: The 25 Industries with the Biggest Employment Gain (or Smallest

Loss) for Small Employers as of November 2020, Relative to February 2020

(CES)

4-Digit NAICS Title

[4-digit NAICS code]

Percentage Employment Change as of

November 2020 Relative to February 2020 for

Small employers Large employers

[Emp. Size: 1-499] [Emp. Size: 500+]

Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction [2373]17.0 **

Lawn and Garden Equipment and

Supplies Stores [4442]

5.8 0.2

Services to Buildings and Dwellings

[5617]

5.2 -7.5

Farm Product Raw Material Merchant Wholesalers [4245]

3.7 4.2

Other Specialty Trade Contractors

[2389]

3.6 -4.9

Scientific Research and Development

Services [5417]

3.5 0.4

Cement and Concrete Product Manufacturing [3273]3.5 **

Fruit and Vegetable Preserving and

Specialty Food Manufacturing [3114]

2.2 1.5

Community Food & Housing, &

Emergency & Relief Services [6242]

2.1 **

Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order

Houses [4541]

2.1 20.0

Nonmetallic Mineral Mining and

Quarrying [2123]

2.0 -0.9

Software Publishers [5112] 1.6 -0.8

Sugar and Confectionery Product

Manufacturing [3113]

1.5 **

Agencies, Brokerages, and Other Insurance Related Activities [5242]1.5 -3.6

Chemical and Allied Products Merchant Wholesalers [4246]1.4 -3.8

Dairy Product Manufacturing [3115] 1.3 -0.7

Automotive Parts, Accessories, and

Tire Stores [4413]

1.2 -2.0

Animal Slaughtering and Processing

[3116]

1.2 -0.1

Miscellaneous Nondurable Goods

Merchant Wholesalers [4249]

1.0 -1.2

Soap, Cleaning Compound, and Toilet

Preparation Manufacturing [3256]

0.2 **

Waste Collection [5621] 0.1 -3.7

Building Material and Supplies Dealers [4441]0.1 18.4

Death Care Services [8122] 0.1 **

Other Heavy and Civil Engineering

Construction [2379]

-0.3 **

Insurance Carriers [5241] -0.4 -0.4

** means there was insufficient sample size to publish the number.

9
Table 3: The 25 industries where small employer employment has fallen most compared with large

employers in the same industry as of November 2020, relative to February 2020 (CES)

4-Digit NAICS Title

[4-digit NAICS code]

Percentage Employment Change as of

November 2020 Relative to February 2020 for

Small employers Large employers

[Emp. Size: 1-499] [Emp. Size: 500+] Difference

Couriers and Express Delivery Services [4921]-4.9 38.6 -43.5

Travel Arrangement and Reservation

Services [5615]

-38.6 -7.3 -31.3

Warehousing and Storage [4931] -3.8 16.8 -20.6

Building Material and Supplies Dealers [4441]0.1 18.4 -18.3

Home Furnishings Stores [4422] -3.1 14.9 -18.0

Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order

Houses [4541]

2.1 20.0 -17.9

Commercial and Industrial Machinery

and Equipment Rental and Leasing

[5324]

-20.7 -3.1 -17.6

Other Information Services [5191] -12.8 2.9 -15.7

General Merchandise Stores, including Warehouse Clubs and Supercenters [4523]

-1.1 12.3 -13.4

Clothing Stores [4481] -17.9 -4.7 -13.2

Shoe Stores [4482] -17.8 -5.4 -12.4

Other Support Services [5619] -11.5 0.1 -11.6

Special Food Services [7223] -33.0 -22.4 -10.6

Employment Services [5613] -6.5 3.8 -10.3

Specialized Design Services [5414] -9.6 -0.7 -8.9

Freight Transportation Arrangement

[4885]

-4.8 3.9 -8.7

Sporting Goods, Hobby, and Musical

Instrument Stores [4511]

-6.7 0.8 -7.5

Professional and Commercial Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers [4234]-5.7 1.7 -7.4

Securities and Commodity Contracts

Intermediation and Brokerage [5231]

-5.5 1.8 -7.3

Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing

[3118]

-6.4 0.5 -6.9

Beverage Manufacturing [3121] -6.6 0.1 -6.7

Navigational, Measuring, Electromedical, and Control Instruments Manufacturing [3345]

-4.4 2.2 -6.6

Other Miscellaneous Manufacturing

[3399]

-7.0 -0.4 -6.6

Motion Picture and Video Industries

[5121]

-30.1 -24.0 -6.1

Investigation and Security Services

[5616]

-10.3 -4.2 -6.1

10
Table 4: The 25 industries where small employer employment has fallen least compared with large

employers in the same industry as of November 2020, relative to February 2020 (CES)

4-Digit NAICS Title

[4-digit NAICS code]

Percentage Employment Change as of

November 2020 Relative to February 2020 for

Small employers Large employers

[Emp. Size: 1-499] [Emp. Size: 500+] Difference

Other Amusement and Recreation Industries [7139]-16.4 -36.3 19.9

Civic and Social Organizations [8134] -21.6 -38.4 16.8

Services to Buildings and Dwellings

[5617]

5.2 -7.5 12.7

Printing and Related Support Activities [3231]-10.6 -21.1 10.5

Educational Support Services [6117] -10.6 -20.2 9.6

Specialized Freight Trucking [4842] -0.9 -9.8 8.9

Other Specialty Trade Contractors

[2389]

3.6 -4.9 8.5

Support Activities for Mining [2131] -19.9 -27.8 7.9

Commercial and Industrial Machinery

and Equipment (except Automotive

and Electronic) Repair and Maintenance [8113]

-3.0 -10.3 7.3

Foundation, Structure, and Building

Exterior Contractors [2381]

-0.6 -7.6 7.0

Radio and Television Broadcasting

[5151]

-4.9 -11.5 6.6

Personal Care Services [8121] -13.3 -19.4 6.1

Lawn and Garden Equipment and

Supplies Stores [4442]

5.8 0.2 5.6

Automotive Equipment Rental and

Leasing [5321]

-7.6 -12.9 5.3

Nonresidential Building Construction

[2362]

-5.9 -11.2 5.3

Chemical and Allied Products Merchant Wholesalers [4246]1.4 -3.8 5.2

Building Finishing Contractors [2383] -4.0 -9.2 5.2

Agencies, Brokerages, and Other Insurance Related Activities [5242]1.5 -3.6 5.1

Automotive Repair and Maintenance

[8111]

-4.1 -8.7 4.6

Offices of Real Estate Agents and Brokers [5312]-1.0 -5.1 4.1

Offices of Other Health Practitioners

[6213]

-5.2 -9.2 4.0

Waste Collection [5621] 0.1 -3.7 3.8

Technical and Trade Schools [6115] -10.9 -14.7 3.8

Support Activities for Air Transportation [4881]-15.6 -19.3 3.7

Residential Building Construction

[2361]

-1.8 -5.4 3.6

11