Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Figure 1. Unemployment risk across demographic groups

Figure 1 is a horizontal bar chart. The Y-axis is broken into four panels for (from top to bottom) age, education, nativity, and race. Each panel shows two sets of bars for different groups, with the dark blue bars showing the average 12-month unemployment risk and the light blue bars showing the average unemployment-population ratio. The X-axis ranges from 0 to 8 percent. The first panel, age, shows bars labeled “Age 16 to 24”, “Age 25 to 54”, and “Age 55+”, with the largest bars for the younger category and smallest bars for the oldest category. The second panel, education, shows bars labeled “High school or less”, “Some college”, “Bachelor’s degree”, and “Advanced degree”, with both types of bars decreasing in educational attainment. The third panel, nativity, shows bars labeled “Native-born” and “Foreign-born”, with the latter slightly higher than the former. The fourth panel, race, shows bars labeled “WNH” (for white non-Hispanic), “BNH” (for Black non-Hispanic), “Hispanic”, and “Other”. Both measures are lowest for “WNH” and highest for “BNH”. For each set of bars, the dark blue (unemployment risk) and light blue (unemployment-population ratio) are close in magnitude.

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Figure 2. Duration dependence in unemployment risk

Figure 2 is a line chart showing two series. The X-axis refers to unemployment duration (measured in months) and runs from 0 to 30. The Y-axis refers to average unemployment risk (measured in percent) and runs from 10 to 40. The first line, showing average unemployment risk among the unemployed in 2007, generally trends upward over unemployment duration. The second line, showing average unemployment risk among the unemployed in 2009, also generally trends upward over unemployment duration but at a higher level by roughly 10 percentage points.

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Figure 3. Changing unemployment risk by labor force status

Figure 3 is an area plot showing six different shaded areas. The X-axis measures the percent of the population made up by each category and runs from 0 percent to 100 percent. The Y-axis measures unemployment risk as a percent and runs from 0 to 60 percent. The dark red shaded area outlined with a dash-dot line labeled “Employed, 2007” reports the distribution of unemployment risk among those employed in 2007, which covers roughly 60 percent of the population with unemployment risk low for most of this group and peaking at about 30 percent in the tail. The dark blue shaded area outlined with a dash-dot line labeled “Unemployed, 2007” reports the distribution of unemployment risk among those unemployed in 2007, which covers less than 5 percent of the population but with a peak unemployment risk more than 60 percent in the tail. The dark green shaded area outlined with a dash-dot line labeled “Not in labor force, 2007” reports the distribution of unemployment risk among those not in the labor force in 2007, which covers the remaining 30 percent of the population and is generally lower than the previous two distributions. The light shaded red/blue/green areas outlined with solid lines and labeled “Employed, 2009”/”Unemployed, 2009”/”Not in labor force, 2009” show the analogous distributions as of 2009. Relative to the 2007 distributions, the 2009 distribution for employed is shorter horizontally while the 2009 distribution for unemployed is wider, and all 2009 distributions are above the 2007 distributions vertically.

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Figure 4. Distribution of (log) unemployment risk among employed

Figure 4 is a line plot showing four series. The X-axis reports the percentile among employed workers and ranges from 0 to 100. The Y-axis reports the average log unemployment risk for each percentile, ranging from -2 to -6. The four series are labeled “2005” (shown with a red solid line), “2007” (green dotted line), “2009” (blue dashed line), and “2015” (purple dash-dot line), and each shows the distribution of log unemployment risk among the employed in the labeled year. Each series has an inverted “S” shape, rising rapidly at the first few percentiles, sloping up gradually between the 5th and 95th percentiles, and then rising rapidly again at the last few percentiles. The lines labeled “2005” and “2015” are nearly identical, the line labeled “2007” is slightly higher at each percentile, and the line labeled “2009” is higher still at each percentile.

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Figure 5. Industry heterogeneity in the distribution of unemployment risk over time

Figure 5 is a two-panel line plot. The left panel is labeled “25th Percentile” and the right panel is labeled “75th Percentile”. Each panel features the same four series and the same axes. The X-axis labeled “Year” measures calendar year and runs from 2000 to 2022. The Y-axis measures average unemployment risk and runs from 0.0 to 12.5 percent. The four series are labeled “Construction” (shown with a solid red line), “Professional & related services” (blue dashed line), “Manufacturing” (green dotted line), and “Retail trade” (purple dash-dot line). Each series shows the average unemployment within the labeled industry at either the 25th percentile (left panel) or 75th percentile (right panel). The 25th percentile series in the left panel are generally below the corresponding series for the 75th percentile in the right panel. Within each panel, construction is usually the highest, followed by similar magnitudes for manufacturing and retail, with the lowest levels always in professional & related services. Each of the series shows an uptick during each of the three national recessions during this time period (the 2001 recession, the 2007-09 Great Recession, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic recession).

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