Estimated Characteristics and Employment of Essential Workers in California, from May 2020 to June 2021

We estimate the proportion of essential workers with the monthly CPS, using California’s list of “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers.”1 We also use the CPS to identify the percent of workers who were working on-site -- that is, they were not working from home. [...] We then estimate the proportion of workers who are in essential industries and also not working from home over the period May 2020 to June 2021.2 We estimate annual number of hours worked using the IPUMS - American Community Survey one-year sample for 2019 (ACS), and use this calculation to estimate the proportion of all workers working at least 1,000 hours across industries. [...] 2 For readers’ reference, in Table 1, we list the proportion of workers in essential industries and the proportion of workers not working from home separately. [...] 3 By multiplying our employment counts and the combined proportion of onsite essential workers by the proportion of workers working at least 1,000 hours, which comes from the 2019 ACS, we are assuming that this proportion remains the same in the period of interest, and that this proportion is not related to essential industry status or not working from home status. [...] The analyses, interpretations, conclusions, and views expressed in this brief are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the Regents of the University of California, or collaborating organizations or funders.