Covid-19, Occupational Segregation, Job Mobility, Labor Market Tightness

J30, J63, I18

This paper analyzes heterogeneity in post-pandemic labor market adjustment across industries, contrasting healthcare and social assistance with leisure and hospitality. Using CPS monthly microdata (2015-2023), JOLTS separations, and LEHD Jobto- Job flows, we estimate sector-specific wage-separation elasticities, demographicgroup- specific wage Phillips curves and link labor market tightness to wage growth and employer-to-employer mobility. Both sectors experienced significant increases in quit rates after 2020, however, the underlying drivers are markedly different. Leisure and hospitality workers showed substantial upward mobility across industry wage-premium quartiles and frequent exits to other sectors, consistent with improved outside options in a tight labor market. Conversely, healthcare and social assistance workers displayed limited outward mobility, higher rates of within industry job downgrades, and separation elasticities that weakened further after Covid-19. These dynamics align with well-documented structural features of care industries -credential-based occupational closure, a disproportionately female and older workforce, and pandemic-induced deterioration in working conditions. Our findings suggest that wage compression disproportionately benefited mobile male workers in low-wage jobs outside the care sector, while quits in healthcare reflect non-wage factors and degraded working conditions.