on real-time population surveys document strong increases in employment and declines in unemployment during May and most of June. However, the current figures are still well below their pre-COVID levels (Bick and Blanding, 2020).

These findings are confirmed by studies focused on small businesses. Kurman et al. (2020) find that until mid-April employment in small businesses in the services sector dropped by 60%, equivalent to the loss of 18.2 million jobs. However, from mid-April to June more than half of the closed businesses reopened, resulting in 9.1 million additional jobs, mainly taken by previously furloughed workers. Bartik et. al (2020) find similar patterns and point to significant heterogeneity across sectors, with retail, arts and entertainment, personal services, food services, and hospitality reporting the largest declines. Using CPS data, Fairlie (2020) confirms that economic activities by small businesses significantly declined in April and only partially recovered in May.

Overall, the research so far seems to unanimously show that the workers hit the hardest by the crisis are women, young, low-educated (Béland et al., 2020a; Bick and Blanding, 2020; Cho and Winters, 2020; Cowan, 2020; Montenovo et al., 2020) or with an ethnic minority or migration background (Béland et al., 2020a; Borjas and Cassidy, 2020; Cho and Winters, 2020; Cowan, 2020; Fairlie et al., 2020; Montenovo et al., 2020). Nevertheless, some evidence suggests that during the initial stages of the crisis men might have been disproportionately affected (Béland et al., 2020a) and that some older workers might have chosen to go on early retirement (Coibion et al., 2020; Cowan, 2020).

These studies also explore whether social distancing measures have disproportionally impacted specific categories of workers. Findings from this research show that jobs that cannot be performed from home are at higher risk, while, jobs in workplaces classified as essential face lower risks (Béland et al., 2020a; Cajner et al., 2020; Montenovo et al., 2020). As an estimated 93% of workers around the world live in countries with some forms of workplace restrictions (ILOa, 2020), a large body of research across the world has focused on identifying vulnerable occupations, with a particular focus on jobs that cannot be performed from home and in sectors that have been severely affected by the shutdown (Diengel and Neiman, 2020; Garrote-Sanchez et al., 2020; Hatayama et al., 2020; Hicks et al., 2020; Mongey et al. 2020; Pouliakas and Branka, 2020; Saltiel, 2020). ILO (2020a) shows that while only 7.9% of workers around the world worked from home before the crisis, almost 18% are in jobs or have access to the infrastructure that could allow them to work from home in the future. This research also shows that working from home is more feasible in high-income countries (23%) than in low-income countries (13%). Focusing on Greece, Pouliakas (2020) shows that more than one-third of jobs in the Greek labor market could be performed from home.

A number of studies have tried to identify the channels driving the observed employment impacts. Using data from the United States’ Current Employment Statistics (CES), Brinca et al. (2020) try to disentangle the aggregate COVID shock in its demand and supply components. They observe that in April 2020 employment in the private sector was significantly lower than its historical average and estimated that more than 65% of this impact was due to labor supply shocks, i.e. inability of workers to perform their jobs. Kong and Prinz (2020) conclude that restaurant and bar limitations and non-essential business closures were the only transmission prevention measures that in the United States led to an increase in UI claims. Barrero et al. (2020) 7