Digital Jobs Will Insulate Some U.S. Areas From Covid-19 Shock

A person works on a laptop computer.Photographer: Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg
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U.S. regions with the most digitally-intensive jobs will be “more insulated from the Covid-19 shock,” according to , while areas lacking in that type of employment are likely to be hardest hit.

Indeed, U.S. counties with high concentrations of jobs in industries such as retail and health care could see as much as a 4% decline in their annual growth rate if the shutdowns last just a month, according to the paper authored by from Jonathan Hartley, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Christos A. Makridis, MIT Sloan School of Management.