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Employment and Unemployment

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An individual's education, age, and health status may present barriers or opportunities to employability, just as a region's economy, tax base, and number of immigrants and emigrants may affect job availability. RAND research examines the impact of a range of policies and forces—personal, regional, and global—on employment and unemployment.

Commentary
Green Jobs and Skills Development for Disadvantaged Groups
Many countries have plans to increase green job opportunities. To make sure that everyone can benefit from this promised green transition, it is important to understand how people with low qualifications, and other marginalised groups, might be able to access green jobs.
Nov 8, 2022
Commentary
Got a Labor Shortage? Make It Easier to Work
If the United States wants to avoid a long-term worker shortage, it should look to what policy can—but has failed to—fully address. We have a long history using carrots and sticks, but this is a problem we may not be able to cajole or punish our way out of. Finding workers can be as simple as giving more people a chance to work.
Aug 2, 2022

Explore Employment and Unemployment

Journal Article
Evaluating England's Youth Employment Infrastructure: Final Report
This research generates evidence and learning on how infrastructure organisations (IOs) in England support the youth employment space and effect change.
May 25, 2023
Research Brief
Wraparound Services Are Key to Helping Justice-Involved Los Angelenos Get and Keep Jobs
A team of researchers from the RAND Corporation and Harder+Company Community Research partnered with the Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Reentry to evaluate Cohort 2 of Project imPACT. This brief highlights program implementation and outcome findings.
May 12, 2023
Report
Implementation and Outcome Evaluation of Project imPACT — A Proposition 47–Funded Program in Los Angeles: Cohort 2 Final Evaluation Report
This report presents findings related to individuals served by Project imPACT, an employment-focused reentry program, between June 2020 and September 2022, demonstrating how service providers helped Fellows achieve several of the program's goals.
May 12, 2023
Journal Article
Health-led Trials: Evaluation Synthesis Report
This report summarises and synthesises the evidence from the Health-led Trials, a large scale trial of Individual Placement and Support for people with moderate to mild mental and physical health conditions in primary care.
Apr 25, 2023
Tool
RAND HRS Longitudinal File 2020 (V1) Documentation: Includes 1992-2020 (Early Release)
This tool is a cleaned, easy-to-use, and streamlined data product containing information from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal household survey that facilitates research into different aspects of population aging in the United States.
Apr 13, 2023
Journal Article
Understanding Decision Making Around Changing the State Pension Age: A Review of International Evidence
This report presents findings from a review commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions to investigate how high-income OECD countries change State Pension age (SPa) and the variables considered when they changed the SPa.
Apr 5, 2023
Report
Harnessing Mobile Technology to Enable U.S. Personnel Vetting
The authors examined how U.S. government vetting could be enhanced with mobile technologies and platforms for the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council Program Management Office.
Feb 15, 2023
Journal Article
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Workers with a Criminal History
In this article, we use data from the NLSY97 COVID-19 Supplement to examine the extent to which workers with a criminal history record had employment disruptions during the early months of the pandemic.
Feb 14, 2023
Blog
The Racial Wealth Gap, the Effects of Long COVID, Teacher Diversity: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on understanding the racial wealth gap, why long COVID may threaten the U.S. economy, what prevents people of color from becoming and staying teachers, and more.
Dec 9, 2022
Commentary
Long COVID Is a Mass Disability. The Labor Market Is in Denial
Forget the work-from-home revolution or quiet quitting: The COVID-19 pandemic's biggest impact on the U.S. labor market will be as a mass disability event. It's a shock that the economy is not well prepared to handle.
Dec 7, 2022
Commentary
How COVID-19 Transformed the Jobs Market
The COVID-19 pandemic initially devastated the U.S. economy. It also exposed and exacerbated existing inequities in society. But in as yet unpredictable ways, it may have accelerated profound changes in how labor works today.
Dec 1, 2022
$Young Afro-Latina mother taking temperature of her child in bed, photo by Vesnaandjic/Getty Images$

Commentary
Working Moms' Winter Math Is Getting Tougher
Working mothers remain disproportionately responsible for raising children, and no one can work and take care of sick kids at the same time. In the coming months, the tripledemic of COVID, the flu, and RSV will pull a lot of working mothers out of the office for days at a stretch, compounding the obstacles that women already face.
Nov 22, 2022
News Release
Disadvantaged Groups Could Fall Further Behind in the Emerging Green Economy
A new report from RAND Europe shows that disadvantaged groups risk being left behind in the growing movement across Europe to increase job opportunities that benefit the environment—or “green the economy”—unless local leaders take concerted action to make sure such job opportunities are more inclusive.
Oct 27, 2022
Research Brief
A long road to just transitions: Limited green job opportunities for disadvantaged groups
RAND Europe, with support from JPMorgan Chase, explored the current situation of green opportunities for disadvantaged groups, in particular for people with low qualifications, in 10 European Regions.
Oct 26, 2022
Report
Green jobs and skills development for disadvantaged groups
This report explored green jobs and skills development for people from disadvantaged groups in 10 European cities.
Oct 26, 2022
Journal Article
Explaining Heterogeneity in Use of Non-wage Benefits: The Role of Worker and Firm Characteristics in Disability Accommodations
Using administrative data in Oregon, we document significant dispersion in accommodation rates across workers and firms. We decompose the variance in accommodation use, finding that firm characteristics explain 29% of this variance.
Aug 24, 2022
Journal Article
Skills Needs in Selected Occupations Over the Next 5–10 Years: Research Report
This research draws on expert interviews and workshops to answer the question how skills needs will change in the four priority areas (health, science and technology, managers, and skilled trades) over the next 5–10 years.
Aug 3, 2022
Journal Article
Networking and Collaboration: Case Study 5
This case study explores the ways in which infrastructure organisations network and collaborate in their efforts to improve employment outcomes for young people in England.
Aug 3, 2022

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Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Jessie Wang

Economist

Jessie Wang is an economist at RAND Corporation. Her research interests include time use, population aging, the macroeconomic implications of individual decisions in labor and health, and gender roles. Her current work studies caregiving and care arrangement in an aging population; alternative…
Natalie Picken

Senior Analyst

Natalie Picken (she/her) is a senior analyst at RAND Europe, working in the area of home affairs and social policy. She has research interests and experience in research projects spanning employment, criminal justice systems, child and family policy, and education. Methodologically, Picken has…

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