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I'm a little confused by their definition of "jobs" here. Is this the absolute number of jobs? Or the types of jobs available? Looking at the article, they use

I'm a little confused by their definition of "jobs" here. Is this the absolute number of jobs? Or the types of jobs available? Looking at the article, they use wages to get a more firm grasp on this (saying something like 44% of wages could be made from home). If that's the case, what does that statistic say for the unemployment rate in the US, should social-distancing remain long term? Are we going to see >50% unemployment??

bdcravens 7y ago
A large number of the remaining 56% are classified as "essential": grocery and certain retail, public servants and first responders, healthcare, education, automotive services, etc. In Houston, for example, many of the energy sector jobs are classified as essential. Stay at home orders don't impact those jobs (though many of them may be operating at partial capacity)
- jbullock35 7y ago
  > A large number of the remaining 56% are classified as "essential": grocery and certain retail, public servants and first responders, healthcare, education [...] The authors already code 82% of teachers as able to work from home, albeit with difficulty. See the second footnote in the paper.
  - Noos 7y ago
    That's not just working from home if so, that's reassigning an industry from face to face to virtual, and if history is any guide a lot of teachers may lose their jobs as well as secondary jobs becoming lost too. Sort of a pyrrhic victory.
blendo 7y ago
I was also unclear about whether they mean "How many workers in the US could work from home", or whether "How many job categories can work from home". But they state "To answer these questions, we classify the feasibility of working at home for all occupations and merge this classi cation with occupational employment counts for the United States." So it looks like they're counting number of workers.
morgante 7y ago
> If that's the case, what does that statistic say for the unemployment rate in the US, should social-distancing remain long term? Are we going to see >50% unemployment?? Highly unlikely. The government will abandon social distancing long before tolerating a long-term 50+% unemployment rate.

bdcravens 7y ago

A large number of the remaining 56% are classified as "essential": grocery and certain retail, public servants and first responders, healthcare, education, automotive services, etc. In Houston, for example, many of the energy sector jobs are classified as essential. Stay at home orders don't impact those jobs (though many of them may be operating at partial capacity)

jbullock35 7y ago
> A large number of the remaining 56% are classified as "essential": grocery and certain retail, public servants and first responders, healthcare, education [...] The authors already code 82% of teachers as able to work from home, albeit with difficulty. See the second footnote in the paper.
- Noos 7y ago
  That's not just working from home if so, that's reassigning an industry from face to face to virtual, and if history is any guide a lot of teachers may lose their jobs as well as secondary jobs becoming lost too. Sort of a pyrrhic victory.

blendo 7y ago

I was also unclear about whether they mean "How many workers in the US could work from home", or whether "How many job categories can work from home". But they state "To answer these questions, we classify the feasibility of working at home for all occupations and merge this classi cation with occupational employment counts for the United States." So it looks like they're counting number of workers.

morgante 7y ago

> If that's the case, what does that statistic say for the unemployment rate in the US, should social-distancing remain long term? Are we going to see >50% unemployment?? Highly unlikely. The government will abandon social distancing long before tolerating a long-term 50+% unemployment rate.