Labor Market Tightness in Advanced Economies

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a puzzle has emerged in several advanced economies: Unfilled job vacancies have increased sharply even though employment has yet to fully recover. This new International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff Discussion note sheds light on three contributing factors—barriers to returning to work, changing worker preferences away from certain types of jobs, and sectoral and occupational job mismatch—and assesses the impact of labor market tightness on wage growth.

Chair
Olivier Blanchard, C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow, PIIE

Presenter and Coauthor
Romain Duval, Assistant Director, Research Department, IMF

Discussants

• Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department, IMF
• Anna Stansbury, Nonresident Senior Fellow, PIIE
• Betsey Stevenson, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan