Brian Lewandowski, an economist from Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that has more to do with the types of jobs people who live here have.
“Colorado is performing a bit better because of our industry mix,” Lewandowski said. “Because of our professional and business service jobs, we have a high concentration of that activity, especially in the metropolitan Front Range. Those jobs have held up a bit better.”
These are also jobs that allow employees to work from home and are usually higher paid.
Industries like retail, tourism, or service industries typically require employees to work in person and tend to pay less. There also isn’t any information yet about what kind of work employees come back to: full-time, part-time or reduced hours?
“We've seen hits to tourism and also food services that have been cut down to either limited service or take out,” Gedney said. “So while that industry recovered a large portion of jobs, it still has a long way to go.”
For Linehan, he did get his job and his hours back. But, he had to leave Aspen for Carbondale, a few miles down the valley. It’s hard to afford the cost of living in the glitzy large tourist town. He said he thinks he can pay his bills with just this job for now, but was working multiple service jobs to make ends meet before the pandemic.
Regardless, he’s happy to be back at work.
“I feel good because I don't like relying on unemployment,” Linehan said. “I was happy to get off of it because I think that there are people who are struggling more, who those resources should be devoted to rather than myself.”
Margaret Caffrey, a manager at a small casual restaurant in Boulder, was furloughed on March 21 and couldn’t come back to work till the second week of May. Like Linehan, she was also able to get unemployment but had more anxiety about coming back.
“I definitely had a panic attack before I went back in,” she said. “Little things like ‘Is it important to open a restaurant during COVID? Is it important to serve food during this time [when we] could be staying home and taking better care of our community?’ ”
Caffrey said she told her co-managers about her feelings and they did not force anyone to come in who didn’t want to. Her restaurant was approved for a federal Paycheck Protection Loan and that has helped to cover her and her coworkers’ salaries.
Business, however, is still nowhere what it was before the pandemic. In some ways, she’s happy about it because she likes that people are taking social distancing seriously. However, Caffrey still worries about the future of her job.
“There’s a bit of anxiety,” she said. “We’re doing this but we don’t actually know if this is going to be sustainable.”
The lack of a secure future has her thinking about other careers. Caffrey will only make the leap if she has to; she likes working in the service industry, she said. She just hopes there’s a future in it.
Lewandowski acknowledges the economic gains but warns people to not get too excited.
“I think it’s kind of low-hanging fruit when you go from being on lockdown to where many of our businesses were shut down to reopening,” he said. “Of course we’re going to get this snapback but what happens after?”
Lewandowski still expects a wave of some bankruptcies, companies that never reopen, or companies that will survive for a while longer but ultimately can’t make enough money to be sustainable. He estimates it’ll take till 2023 to see pre-pandemic levels of economic activity — if there are no other widespread shutdowns.
"still" - Google News
July 08, 2020 at 07:24PM
https://ift.tt/2O85hVC
Colorado's Economy Is On The Mend But Many Are Still Left Behind - Colorado Public Radio
"still" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35pEmfO
https://ift.tt/2YsogAP
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Colorado's Economy Is On The Mend But Many Are Still Left Behind - Colorado Public Radio"
Post a Comment