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The reduction of carbon emissions will require a rapid phasing out of coal and the displacement of millions of coal miners. How much could this energy transition cost mining workers? We use the dramatic collapse of the UK coal industry to estimate the long-term impact on displaced miners. We find evidence of substantial losses: hourly wages fell by 40% and earnings fell by 80% to 90% one year after job loss. These losses are persistent and remain significantly depressed fifteen years later, amounting to present discounted value earnings losses of between four and six times the miners pre-displacement earnings.

Increases in the ins of unemployment during recessions are the result of two major forces: increased separations, or a fall in job finding of potential job-to-job transitions. This paper quantifies the contribution of these two channels using the flows approach to the labour market in the UK and US over a period of two decades including the Great Recession. First, the paper documents large variation in outcomes by reason for separation. Second, the paper shows that abstracting from this variation can significantly bias the importance of separations and job finding in driving changes in the ins of unemployment and the unemployment rate. Finally, the paper shows that fluctuations in layoffs and job finding conditional on separation are both important drivers of fluctuations in the ins of unemployment.