As a result of this, unemployment was not greatly affected in these countries. The implications of reductions in hours worked were significantly different in Canada and the United States. In Canada, almost half of the reduction in hours worked was due to people losing their jobs. In the United States, two-thirds of the decline in hours worked was due to people losing their jobs. Among those who lost their jobs, relatively more people became inactive in Canada, while the majority became unemployed in the United States. Furthermore, these disruptions did not equally affect all workers and segments of the economy. Estimates suggest that women, migrants, young people, informal workers, and specific vulnerable sectors and occupations were particularly hit by the crisis (ILOa, 2020; OECD, 2020).

The policies introduced to attenuate the disruptions caused by the pandemic have likely played a role in the way labor markets have responded in different countries. Gentilini et al. (2020) show that since the beginning of the outbreak, 200 countries implemented more than 1,000 social protection and employment measures to address the impacts of the crisis. While most of these interventions were cash transfer programs, several countries also introduced policies specifically focused on attenuating the labor market impacts of the crisis: 64 countries provided unemployment benefits, 53 social security subsidies, 69 wage subsidies, 24 labor market regulation adjustments and 10 shorter work time benefits.

Some clear patterns have emerged after these initial months of policies’ implementation. A first group of countries has focused on policies and programs aimed at preserving existing employment relationships, often implemented through the provision of subsidies to reduce labor and other costs for employers and/or the introduction of measures to limit dismissals. New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, France, and Switzerland are all countries in which take-up rates in job retention schemes have been high. A second group of countries has focused on mitigating the impacts of the crisis on workers by expanding unemployment insurance systems. In the United States, Israel, Norway, Canada and Ireland, the unemployment insurance system has played an important role in response to the crisis. While projections, administrative data and surveys suggest that increases in unemployment have been minimal for the first group of countries, unemployment has increased significantly for the second group (Rothwell, 2020; OECD, 2020).

A large body of research in the last months has focused on better understanding the impacts of COVID on labor markets in specific countries, with particular attention to identifying groups severely affected by the crisis and jobs at risk. An increasing number of papers has also focused on the impacts of the pandemic on small firms, on the role of policies in shaping labor market dynamics, and on potential shock-induced changes in labor market behaviors such as job search.

Studies focused on the United States suggest that significant job losses were recorded in March and April, with some initial signs of recovery in May, which however seem to have slowed down by the end of June. Evidence from both standard surveys (Béland et al., 2020a; Cowan, 2020) and private sector data (Coibion et al., 2020; Cajner et al. 2020) points to unprecedented drops in employment, increases in unemployment and declines in labor force participation. Between February and April 2020, it was estimated that at least 20 million people lost their jobs (Coibion et al., 2020; Cajner et al. 2020). These patterns have been accompanied by significant declines in job vacancies posted by firms (Kahn et al., 2020; Campello et al., 2020). Estimates based 6