Labor market risks of a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area: an update and extension

Two datasets were merged to prepare the analysis: a geographic file with shaking intensities from the USGS and an establishment-level microdata set containing employment and wages from QCEW’s Longitudinal Database (LDB). The geographic file of intensities, which uses MMI-scale measurements, gauges the effects of an earthquake at various distances from the fault rupture. The MMI scale ranges from I (not felt) to XII (total damage). (See figure 2 for an abbreviated version of the scale.) The analysis in this article focuses on those areas with estimated shaking intensities of VII or higher on the MMI scale. In particular, VII and VIII feature prominently in this analysis. As seen in figure 2, intensity levels VII and VIII refer to geographic areas that would likely experience very strong shaking and moderate damage and geographic areas that would likely experience severe shaking and moderate-to-heavy damage, respectively.

The QCEW microdata contain geocoded establishment data, including the total employment counts and employee wages reported by individual businesses as of the first quarter of 2022. To construct the analysis, the employment and wage data from QCEW were overlaid on a geographic map with the USGS shaking intensity file. When spatially integrated (i.e., when the data points are overlaid) with the shaking intensity zones provided by the shaking intensity file, one can tabulate the potential business and labor market losses. Specifically, one can see the impacts of a major earthquake on wages and employment.