Firing discrimination: Selective labor market responses of firms during the COVID-19 economic crisis

Abstract

The speed of the economic downturn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has been exceptional, causing mass layoffs—in Germany up to 30% of the workforce in some industries. Economic rationale suggests that the decision on which workers are fired should depend on productivity-related individual factors. However, from hiring situations we know that discrimination—i.e., decisions driven by characteristics unrelated to productivity—is widespread in Western labor markets. Drawing on representative survey data on forced layoffs and short-time work collected in Germany between April and December 2020, this study highlights that discrimination against immigrants is also present in firing situations. The analysis shows that employees with a migration background are significantly more likely to lose their job than native workers when otherwise healthy firms are unexpectedly forced to let go of part of their workforce, while firms make more efforts to substitute firing with short-time working schemes for their native workers. Adjusting for detailed job-related characteristics shows that the findings are unlikely to be driven by systematic differences in productivity between migrants and natives. Moreover, using industry-specific variation in the extent of the economic downturn, I demonstrate that layoff probabilities hardly differ across the less affected industries, but that the gap between migrants and natives increases with the magnitude of the shock. In the hardest-hit industries, job loss probability among migrants is three times higher than among natives. This confirms the hypothesis that firing discrimination puts additional pressure on the immigrant workforce in times of crisis.

How working from home affected the social networks and satisfaction of migrant populations during COVID-19

“…As a result, nationals from countries traditionally supplying highly skilled labour (notably Canada and the USA, classi ed in Table 1 among 'other OECD' countries) often switched to working from home (59%), compared to people from other continents-notably Africa, 19%-or from non-EU/EFTA Europe ('other Europe'). Africans (29%) and Latin Americans (26%) were most often affected by a loss or reduction in work activity-re ning ndings by Auer (2022), who identi ed a general tendency for foreign-born workers in Germany to be red more often during the COVID-19 pandemic. Source: Migration-Mobility Survey, Switzerland, 2020 Notes: Only employees, N = 5,154.…”

Analysis of Gender Inequality in the Labor Market and Its Adaptation to the Conditions of Kazakhstan

“…One more aspect to focus on is the existence of certain biases, which affects negatively on the equal distribution of duties and responsibilities at work, as well as opportunities for promotions and development (Auer, 2022). Auer noted (2022) that the most obvious one is the selectivity bias, which happens due to a non-random selection of males and females for better positions in modern enterprises.…”

Socio-economic outcomes of COVID-19 on the marginalised: Who have taken the hardest hit?

“…For example, job losses reported amongst ethnic minority populations were 4% higher than the national average in the United States [ 57 ]. The effects of the pandemic are even more adverse for migrant communities, as they have unequal access to the labour market, stable housing, healthcare, and other essential services [ [58] , [59] , [60] ].…”