The U.S. Census Bureau and the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership in collaboration with the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) and the Labor Market Information (LMI) Institute, welcomes Lee Tucker as he presents, “Initial Impact of COVID-19 on Travel, Tourism, Outdoor Recreation Varied Widely Across States and Demographic Groups.”
In this presentation, Tucker shows how the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) was used to examine how workers employed in travel, tourism, and outdoor recreation across the country were affected by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data indicate that states with the largest COVID-19 outbreaks (northeastern and mid-Atlantic states) and those with the largest share of tourism jobs (Nevada and Hawaii) were disproportionately impacted at the start of the pandemic. Even workers who retained their jobs experienced earnings losses of up to 40%. Comparisons across demographic groups also show that the reductions in earnings and employment in travel, tourism, and outdoor recreation were disproportionately borne by women and younger employees.
About our presenter:
Lee Tucker is an Economist in the Center for Economic Studies, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Research Group. His research interests include a range of topics such as domestic outsourcing, veterans’ labor market outcomes, the impacts of local labor market concentration, and the impacts of unionization. He helped to launch the LEHD’s Veteran Employment Outcomes (VEO) data product, and he is currently focused on efforts to update and improve the production of the LEHD snapshot for researcher use. Lee joined the U.S. Census Bureau in 2018 upon completion of a PhD in Economics from Boston University. He also holds a BA in Economics from Carleton College, and he served as a Staff Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2012-2013.