When Disaster Strikes: How Climate Events Influence Employment Preferences
HKUST IEMS Working Papers No. 86
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Abstract
This paper examines how experiences with climate disasters shape workers’ employment preferences. We find that, in disaster-affected areas, firms with worse environmental performance fill vacancies more slowly and hire lower quality employees than better environmentally performing firms, compared to unaffected areas. The job vacancy effect is more pronounced in regions with stronger belief in climate change and emerges within accounting firms. After disasters, local employees at environmentally worse-performing firms leave more negative employer reviews about environmental issues and are more likely to move to greener employers, relative to other-location employees. Overall, our evidence suggests that climate disasters increase workers’ climate awareness and their preference for environmentally responsible employers.
Authors
Allen H. Huang, Yiyuan Wang, Yue Zheng, Yuqing Zhou
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