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Lydia Coutré: lcoutre@crain.com, (216) 771-5479, @LydiaCoutre
COVID-19 BY THE NUMBERS
The recovery is underway, but economic metrics show just how far we have to go `BY MICHELLE JARBOE | From mid-March to mid-April of 2020, employment in the Cleveland area tumbled nearly 24%.
Once-stable jobs evaporated overnight. Hotels shut down, furloughing thousands of workers across the state. Restaurant dining rooms went dark. As the pandemic pushed the nation’s economy into a recession, white-collar workers retreated to their home offices. Women, hard-hit by layoffs and juggling child care and remote learning responsibilities, disappeared from the labor force at striking levels. Scads of small businesses quietly closed their doors. Now, many economists say the recession is just about over. COVID-19 cases are falling. In Ohio, more than 20% of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine. Job postings and business reopenings are rising. The housing market remains red hot. Still, many economic metrics haven’t rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. The recovery is fragile, tempered by fears about virus variants and political fights over reopening schedules. It’s also lopsided, leaving some sectors and families behind. The start of this year was particularly bleak for small hospitality and leisure businesses in the Cleveland area, for example, according to an economic data tracker created by Opportunity Insights, a nonprofit organization housed at Harvard University. And low-wage workers, who experienced a 37.6% drop in employment roughly a year ago, still have the steepest hill to climb. Here’s a snapshot of where the Cleveland metropolitan area stands, compared with where it was at the beginning of 2020:
Employment
8.8%
` Decrease in overall employment, through early 2021.
16%
High-wage employment has largely recovered, but low-wage workers are suffering The employment rate in the Cleveland metropolitan area has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels for workers who make more than $60,000 a year. That’s not the case for workers who earn less than $27,000. 5%
` Decrease in employment for workers who earn less than $27,000 a year.
0
7%
-5%
` Decrease in employment for workers making $27,000 to $60,000 a year.
-10% -15%
3.2%
` Decrease in employment for workers making more than $60,000 a year.
6.6%
` Increase in local job postings that require little education, from January 2020 to March of this year.
58.7%
` Decrease in local job postings with the heftiest education requirements.
Sector impact
32.7%
Employment rate
like the way the world merged home and work. Having a common struggle in the pandemic unlocked vulnerability, he said. “It allowed new sensitivities, new realizations about how work and life fit together, and how they can fit together,” Siegal said. “By increasing communication and increasing dialogue, it increased trust, because we realized that each person is going to absolutely get their work done, and they’re going to find a way. And we just have to help each other help each other.” To continue what has become a culture shift, Siegal said the company is leaving return to work and what it looks like as an open issue, rather than being prescriptive about it. Leaders will “cherry-pick” what worked in the past year and roll it forward. As employers figure out how the pandemic has shaped and will continue to shape their culture, they’re also dealing with more practical questions about how and how much to continue the flexibilities of the past year as they bring employees back into offices. “If you have an employer who’s willing to be more flexible and understand those dynamics, you don’t have employees making up excuses of why they can’t be at work. Instead, they get creative about how they can be at work,” deBardelaben-Phillips said. “If we can actually be up front and say here’s what’s happening, here’s the flux shift that I’m planning to work today, it just makes it better for everybody.” Across industries, many believe in the power of face-to-face meetings, whether it’s for an investment, sale, partnership or other connections, said Michael Goldberg, a faculty member at Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University who runs the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship. “I think there’s no substitute for being in person, and yet, we all seemed to figure out over the last year ways to substitute for being in person,” he said. In the near-term, he said, people are starting to understand one another’s comfort levels for meeting in person again, even once fully vaccinated. “Perhaps it’s like the art of understanding — whether it’s your customer, whether it’s your partner — how they feel,” Goldberg said. As people are excited to reunite, there’s also some trepidation on whether to do so, and how to communicate ongoing health and safety concerns. Because people haven’t yet mastered navigating new social norms, workplaces need leadership and agreement on how to function. Some may be eager to return, others are apprehensive, and some would rather remain home, having flourished in the past year. With that range of responses, there will be tensions and awkward conversations, Kearney said. “So this really requires that we be gentle with each other and understanding with each other and be proactively relational to each other,” he said. “Find out where and how people were affected by this and how they were impacted by this. And have quieted conversations after we unify, but we will. We will all tell our stories.”
-20%
High-wage worker employment rate
-25%
Middle-wage worker employment rate Low-wage worker employment rate
-30%
Total employment rate
-35% -40% Jan 14 Feb 1 2020
Mar 1
Apr 1
Spending
12.3%
` Increase in Cleveland-area consumer spending from pre-pandemic levels, as of late February.
54%
` Increase in retail spending by Cleveland-area consumers.
35.5%
` Decline in small business revenue through early March.
61.1%
` Revenue decline for small leisure and hospitality businesses.
Jun 1
Jul 1
Aug 1
Sep 1
Oct 1
SOURCE: OPPORTUNITY INSIGHTS, DRAWING ON DATA FROM EARNIN, INTUIT, KRONOS AND PAYCHEX. FIGURES ARE NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED.
` Decline in the number of small businesses open, as of early March. That’s an improvement from April 2020, when small business operations were down by 49.5%.
` Decrease in the number of small leisure and hospitality businesses that are open. That’s a near-record low, a decline even from March and April of 2020.
May 1
49.1% 72.9%
` Decrease in spending on entertainment and recreation.
11.3%
Real estate
Nov 1
Dec 1
Jan 1 Jan 20 2021
CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS GRAPHIC
COVID-19 relief
9.9%
$541.4 million
` Decrease in the total time Clevelanders are spending away from home, as of early March.
` Estimated amount of money that the city of Cleveland will receive, over a two-year period, from the latest federal relief package.
46.7%
` Decline in the number of homes listed for sale in the Cleveland metro area from early 2020 to early 2021.
12.8%
` Increase in the median sale price for a home in the Cleveland metro area from early 2020 to early 2021.
` Increase in spending on groceries. A year ago, as schools closed and businesses shut down across the state, grocery spending jumped by 72.9%.
$153.4 million
` Estimated amount of money that the city of Akron stands to receive, over two years, from the coronavirus relief package.
$239.5 million
` Cuyahoga County’s estimated two-year share of the federal relief package approved this month.
11.8%
` Share of Cuyahoga County residents who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
33%
` Drop in spending on restaurants and hotels.
6,000
` Number of COVID-19 vaccines expected to be available daily at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland.
37.8%
` Decrease in health care spending. SOURCES: OPPORTUNITY INSIGHTS; AFFINITY; WOMPLY; BURNING GLASS TECHNOLOGIES; EARNIN; INTUIT; KRONOS; PAYCHEX; GOOGLE COVID-19 COMMUNITY MOBILITY REPORTS; REDFIN; U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM; OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.
March 22, 2021 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 21
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