COVID-19 impact on job losses in Portugal: who are the hardest-hit?

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic caused job losses to rise dramatically. Herein, the purpose of the article is to identify which personal and job characteristics make individuals more vulnerable or more resilient to COVID-19 unemployment in Portugal and thus to help policymakers, organizations and individuals themselves, in creating mechanisms to avoid unemployment within this new context. Design/methodology/approach Using extensive personal and job-related data on the complete population of newly unemployed in Portugal over several months after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a logit model is estimated to identify the characteristics that make workers more resilient or more vulnerable to COVID-19 unemployment, in comparison with the pre-crisis period. Findings The COVID-19 crisis is shown to be disruptive by changing the unemployment structure, increasing socioeconomic inequalities and weakening traditional mechanisms of employment protection. Additionally, the authors identify a higher vulnerability of low-skilled individuals and of those in occupations with low working-from-home feasibility and/or from non-essential sectors (particularly tourism). Practical implications Policy indications are given aiming to protect the most vulnerable individuals, sectors and regions in Portugal, in this new and unprecedented context. Originality/value A seven-month period following the emergence of the pandemic is considered, which allows investigating both the immediate and the medium-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis on job losses. Additionally, by matching data from three different sources, an extensive set of multilevel variables is considered, some of them new in the literature.

Automated summary

The article aims to identify the characteristics that make individuals in Portugal more vulnerable or resilient to COVID-19 unemployment, in order to help policymakers, organizations, and individuals create mechanisms to prevent unemployment in this new context. The study shows that COVID-19 has disrupted the unemployment structure, increased socioeconomic inequalities, and weakened traditional employment protection mechanisms. Policy indications are provided to protect the most vulnerable individuals, sectors, and regions in Portugal.