The coronavirus pademic forced many types of businesses to shut down last year, and some were hit harder than others. Some closed permanently, and others are still struggling to make it work.
The recession caused by COVID-19 pummeled industries with the most human contact, like the restaurant industry.
On March 19, 2020, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf shocked businesses across the state when he ordered all nonlife-sustaining businesses to close by 8 that evening. Retail, hospitality and service industries were blindsided.
“The hospitality industry isn’t one of those industries where you can pivot to start working from home,” said Ben Fileccia, director of operations and strategy for the Philadelphia region of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.
“By April of 2020, there were 500,000 restaurant workers across the state out of work,” he said. “There were people that were waiting on unemployment for months.”
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Economist Diane Lim said workers in leisure and hospitality tend to be the most economically vulnerable. They are usually young people, disproportionately female and minorities, especially immigrant populations.
Never in modern times have economists seen a recession caused by supply as opposed to a lack of demand, said Lim.
“February was the peak of the economy before all hell broke loose, basically,” she said. “But if you look at economic data … in March we start to fall because that’s like right when we were starting to shut down the economy. And then by mid-April, it was like 'whoosh' — we fell off a cliff.”
The state unemployment office was inundated with calls from jobless Pennsylvanians. But now, as some surviving businesses try to re-hire workers, they’re met with a new problem.
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“I had people in interviews literally saying, ‘Well, how much do you think I’ll make?’ ” said Angela Sultan, co-owner of the restaurant Community in Point Breeze. “ ‘Because I make 'X' amount on unemployment.’ ”
Some restaurants may be able to afford those slight salary bumps. Sultan said likely, most won’t be able to.
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