COVID-19 precipitated sharp job losses, concentrated in the service sector. Prior research suggests that such shocks would negatively affect health and wellbeing. However, the nature of the pandemic crisis was distinct in ways that may have mitigated any such negative effects, and historic expansions in unemployment insurance (UI) may have buffered workers from negative health consequences.
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reshaped the labor market, especially for service sector workers. Frontline service sector workers, already coping with precarious working conditions, faced proximate risks of COVID-19 transmission on the job and navigated new workplace safety measures, including masking, social distancing, and staying home while sick, all in a polarized political environment.
Access to paid family and medical leave (PFML), including leave to care for a seriously ill loved one or recover from one's own serious illness, conveys health and economic benefits for workers and their families.
Mr. Fitzgerald, who is still fatigued from his bout of Covid, designed generous time off policies for his own staff: unlimited sick days, a minimum of 25 vacation days.
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on the important role that frontline retail, grocery, food service, and delivery workers play in the U.S. economy as well as on the difficult and often precarious working conditions these jobs involve. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act exempted large employers from paid sick-leave requirements, even though prior to the pandemic, more than half of service-sector workers at large employers lacked access to paid sick leave. We draw on novel survey data from the Shift Project, collected from service-sector workers employed at large companies, to examine whether employers voluntarily increased paid sick leave when...
