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The Effects of Strikes on Manufacturing Output

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Abstract

I examine the effects of strikes on Canadian manufacturing output using monthly data from 1992 to 2023. I estimate a structural vector autoregression, which places identifying restrictions on the parameters, and use the parameter estimates to create impulse response functions and forecast variance decompositions to determine the effects of strikes on manufacturing output for a 12-month horizon after the start of a strike. I also use this methodology to study data from 1976 to 1984 to see how the effects of strikes on manufacturing output have evolved over time and how they compare with estimates from the earlier literature. In both of the periods I consider, I find that strikes have little effect on manufacturing output and these effects are not statistically different from zero. I obtain similar findings when I conduct an analysis by subsector in manufacturing for both periods I consider.

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Data Availability

The data used in this analysis are available upon request.

Notes

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/03/business/economy/strikes-union-sag-uaw.html; https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/06/whats-at-stake-for-workers-and-their-rights-amid-summer-of-strikes.html

  2. https://www.uschamber.com/security/supply-chain/what-to-know-in-the-detroit-three-uaw-contract-negotiations

  3. Campolieti (2023) discusses the post-war experience with strikes in Canada.

  4. Hameed and Lomas (1975) include iron and steel mills, smelting and refining, other primary metal production, structural metal, metal stamping, other metal products, rubber industries, aircraft and parts, motor vehicles, motor vehicle parts, other transport equipment, pulp and paper mills, other paper products and construction in their analysis.

  5. Maki (1983, 1985) tends to find more evidence that strikes decrease output. However, the focus of his studies is much narrower than many of the other papers in the literature, e.g., just 3 industries, defined by 3-digit SIC codes (Maki 1983) and 5 sawmills in British Columbia (Maki 1985)

  6. If the roots of the VAR(p) are stable, the VAR(p) model can be inverted to obtain an infinite order moving average representation of the time series (Lüktepohl 1993; Hamilton 1994; Canova 2007).

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant/financial support from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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  1. Department of Management, University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Canada

    Michele Campolieti

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  1. Michele Campolieti
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I wrote the paper, curated the data and conducted all analyses.

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Correspondence to Michele Campolieti.

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Campolieti, M. The Effects of Strikes on Manufacturing Output. J Labor Res 47, 6 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-026-09385-8

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