Small + medium-sized biz response to #Covid19? Using hourly timecard data from @joinhomebase, researchers measured impact by geography, industry, and social distancing rules. By @AlexBartik, Marianne Bertrand, Feng Lin, @rothstein_jesse, @mattunrath: https://bit.ly/LaborImpact  (1)

. @joinhomebase provides scheduling & time clock software to small biz across U.S., generating daily data on hourly employee hours, providing a high-frequency picture of employment & hours. Research team build on Homebase's work to document four facts: https://bit.ly/RapidResearch  (2)

Fact 1: Firms have dramatically reduced employee hours. Each sub-plot in this figure shows distribution of hours across firms, measuring relative to average hours per week. By Mar 22, over 40% of firms shut down entirely and most others have large hours reductions. (3)

Fact 2: Hours reductions vary by industry's ability to operate under stay-at-home orders. Hours reductions are largest in Beauty & Personal Care / Leisure & Entertainment, declining over 90%, and smallest in Home & Repair / Transportation (even those hours declined by 50%) (4)

Fact 3: Hours start falling earlier in states with stay-at-home orders, but fall sharply by March 16 in almost all states. By March 28, total hours declined over 70% in states with the earlier stay at home orders, over 15 percentage points more than states without them. (5)

Fact 4: Hours reductions are primarily explained by firm shutdowns and hours reductions, not layoffs. https://bit.ly/RapidResearch  (6)

Research caveats: Homebase data is disproportionately composed of small firms in food service, retail, & other sectors that employ many hourly workers. Data exclude most salaried employees & firms who don't use Homebase. More here: https://bit.ly/RapidResearch  (7)

Also, what research team refers to as a firm shutdown is a shutdown of Homebase measured emp. If firms employ workers who don't schedule their time using Homebase & some workers remain employed, some of hours losses attributed to shutdowns may be properly attributed to layoffs (8