Cleveland Fed, Report: US Labor Market after COVID-19, An Interim Report

“In this Commentary, we show that the labor market recovery from the COVID-19 recession has been uneven across space and occupations. In particular, denser metropolitan areas and those that imposed stricter measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, according to Oxford’s stringency index, have seen slower recovery on employment levels and labor force participation. While there were some changes in the distribution of economic activity across space, these changes are more in line with an uneven recovery than with a change in the productive process resulting from changes in work arrangements.”