Zoomshock: The geography and local labour market consequences of working from home

De Fraja, Gianni; Matheson, Jesse; Rockey, James

Abstract

The Covid-19 health crisis has led to a substantial increase in work done from home, which shifts economic activity across geographic space. We refer to this shift as a 'Zoomshock'. The Zoomshock has implications for locally consumed services; the clientèle of restaurants, coffee bars, pubs, hair stylists, health clubs located near workplaces now demand those services near where they live. In this paper we measure the Zoomshock at a granular level for UK neighbourhoods. We establish three important empirical facts. First, the Zoomshock is large; many workers can workfrom- home and live in a different neighbourhood than they work. Second, the Zoomshock is very heterogenous; economic activity is decreasing in productive city centres and increasing residential suburbs. Third, the Zoomshock moves workers away from neighbourhoods with a large supply of locally consumed services to neighbourhoods where the supply of these services is relatively scarce. We discuss the implications for aggregate employment and local economic recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citation

De Fraja, G., Matheson, J., & Rockey, J. (2021). Zoomshock: The geography and local labour market consequences of working from home. Covid Economics, 1-41

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 5, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jan 13, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 13, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 20, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 22, 2021
• Journal: Covid Economics
• Publisher: CEPR Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Issue: 64
• Pages: 1-41
• Keywords: Covid-19; lockdown; work-from-home; local labour markets
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5247337
• Publisher URL: https://cepr.org/sites/default/files/CovidEconomics64.pdf#Paper1