How severe are costs to workers when the economy undergoes a large recession? In this paper, we try to provide an answer to this question using as an example Latvia, a new EU member state, which faced the most severe recession in Europe and globally in 2008. We employ individual-level Latvian Labor Force Survey and EU SILC data over the years 2002–2016 and 2007–2015, respectively, and analyze transitions in the labor market and their determinants as well as occupational mobility. Our results show that adjustment takes place predominantly at the extensive margin since it is driven by flows to unemployment. We also show that by 2016 the labor market has bounced back to its pre-crisis performance and that for the average worker Latvia’s macroeconomic policies that focused on internal devaluation did not impose large costs in the medium run. However, the young, ethnic minorities and the less skilled were particularly affected by the crisis. Wage regressions suggest that job mobility is not associated with an increase in wages, i.e., with increased labor productivity.

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大衰退和劳动力市场调整：来自拉脱维亚的证据

当经济出现严重衰退时，工人的成本有多严重？在本文中，我们试图以拉脱维亚为例来回答这个问题，拉脱维亚是一个新的欧盟成员国，它在 2008 年面临欧洲和全球最严重的经济衰退。我们采用个人层面的拉脱维亚劳动力调查和欧盟 SILC 2002-2016 年和 2007-2015 年的数据，并分析劳动力市场的转变及其决定因素以及职业流动。我们的结果表明，调整主要发生在广泛边际，因为它是由失业流动驱动的。我们还表明，到 2016 年，劳动力市场已经恢复到危机前的表现，对于普通工人而言，拉脱维亚专注于内部贬值的宏观经济政策在中期并没有造成巨大成本。然而，年轻人、少数族裔和技能较差的人尤其受到危机的影响。工资回归表明，工作流动与工资增加无关，即与劳动生产率提高无关。