The great recession and job loss spillovers: impact of tradable employment shocks on supporting services

This paper explores the spillover effects of job losses via input–output linkages during the Great Recession. Exploiting exogenous variation in tradable employment shocks across US counties, the paper finds that job losses in a county’s tradable industries cause further job losses in the county’s supporting services. A 10% exogenous decline in tradable employment reduces supporting industries’ employment by 3.1%. In addition, a county’s regional supporting services are relatively less affected by its tradable job losses than its local supporting services, reinforcing the argument that the spillovers are due to input–output linkages.