Policy brief: Most reports on the labor-market effects of the first wave of COVID-19 have pointed to women, low-skilled workers and other vulnerable groups being more affected. Research on the topic shows a more mixed picture. Researchers from the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE); Pamela Campa, Jesper Roine and Svante Strömberg explores the Swedish labor market during COVID-19 crisis.

New research finds that female founders of entrepreneurial ventures raise significantly more funding when catering to female-dominated industries. Effectively, this means that men are afforded credibility across a broad range of industries, while women are confined to a less lucrative subset of the labor market.

"The longer a person is unemployed, the greater the probability that the individual will not return to work at all. And even if we recover from the pandemic, it is not certain that those people will return", Jesper Roine explains the risk of longterm-unemployment in a recent interview in Dagens industri.

Sweden lacks both statistics and skills that enable better procurement. A statement by SITE's researcher Giancarlo Spagnolo in a new report that calls for better education and career opportunities for public procurers in an interview with Dagens Samhälle.

Syrian refugees living in Lebanon today are facing limited freedom of movement, limited access to services, and constrained labor rights. For these people, mobile phones serve as essential tools for rebuilding social networks shattered by involuntary displacement.