Elon economist cited in News & Record article about post-recession employment levels

Brandon Sheridan, assistant professor of economics, offered insights about the decline in the workforce participation rate. 

A recent article in the News & Record about employment in the Triad region of North Carolina included insights by Brandon Sheridan, an assistant professor of economics at Elon. 

The Nov. 2 article by Richard Barron, “Triad employment remains stagnant as population grows,” looked at how the number of employed workers in the region has remained relatively flat even though population has grown by more than 50,000 during the past decade. 

Sheridan offered Barron a look at some of the factors that are impacting the participation rate in the local work force. 

Nationally “since 2007, many economists have attributed over half of the decline in the (workforce) participation rate to the aging population,” Elon University economist Brandon Sheridan said. “The other half would then be due to cyclical effects (the Great Recession), as well as the structural changes the economy is undergoing,” Sheridan wrote in an email.