Unemployment, employment contracts, and compensating wage differentials: Michigan in the 1890s

Surveys taken by the Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics in the 1890s reveal that unemployment was pervasive among unskilled workers. The incidence of unemployment was not associated with personal characteristics, but rather with the type of employment contract and job: those with high risk of layoff commanded a wage premium. Seasonality is an important part of this late nineteenth-century story, and the subsequent demise of seasonal activities may have had an important impact on the evolution of labor market institutions.