Local Labor Markets and Career Transitions After Environmental Disasters

Life sounds tougher in Venice, Louisiana relative to Venice Beach, Los Angeles. This article highlights that the major oil spill has meant the end of fishing in this area and that there are a large number of such workers who will be unemployed.

"This spill isn’t going to be fixed in a day, probably even in a year,” said Chuc Nguyen, 35, who emigrated from Vietnam as a child and has fished his entire life. “What else can I do? I don’t know how to read and write. If you tell me to do something other than fishing, I don’t even know what it would be.” "

The article highlights an irony that people like Mr. Nguyen are now applying to the oil company (BP) to help it fight the oil spill. Supply creates demand. So the oil spill knocked out the fishing industry (because the local water is now polluted) but created a demand for cleanup workers.

I have never seen a study of the "job creation" that the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Created but I have now been told that Casey Mulligan has written such a paper. Repair workers earned a high wage as Exxon had lots of work for them to do.