6,400 Alamance County jobs lost during COVID-19 crisis

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Bishop presented a number of metrics to the City Council on Oct. 5, including data from the whole of the Burlington Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Alamance County.

By the end of August, the county had lost 6,400 total jobs since Jan. 1, with heavy losses seen in March and April, when COVID-19 significantly shut down business operations across the state.

“You can see the extreme dip that occurred for business and jobs in March and April with some recovery starting in the later months of May, June, July and August,” Bishop said.

Job losses by industry

According to Bishop, the county’s largest industries include materials transportation and distribution, health and education, manufacturing and leisure and hospitality. The greatest job losses were also seen in these areas.

“Leisure and hospitality is the industry that has taken the brunt of the COVID hit,” Bishop said, noting that 3,100 hospitality jobs were cut in the MSA since the beginning of the year.

The manufacturing industry took the second largest hit, losing 1,400 jobs.

“Manufacturing lost a lot of jobs, despite us having a very strong manufacturing base in Burlington and Alamance County. With most of those being essential business manufacturing goods that were needed throughout the pandemic, we still saw significant furloughs and job losses in manufacturing.”

The third most-affected industry was business and professional services, which lost 1,000 jobs.

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Education and health services lost 500; trade, transportation and utilities lost 300; while the mining, logging and construction, information, financial, government and “other services” industries each lost 100.

Jobs losses and gains in these industries fluctuated throughout the year, but Bishop’s statistics reflect the net losses between January and August throughout the county.

While job losses were widespread, Bishop noted that small businesses in these industries were disproportionately affected by the financial impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

“We had a lot of these impacts in small business as well and similar to personal finances. A lot of data has shown that businesses very rarely kept more than two weeks to three weeks’ worth of payroll and other expenses in their savings so because of that little bit of savings that were around, a lot of small business were hurt disproportionately compared to others,

“You’ve heard the phrase ‘cash is king’ mentioned very frequently throughout this pandemic and that certainly was the case for businesses and especially small businesses. Those small and micro businesses that had several months of savings have been able to survive much more than others,” he said.

More: Small businesses face challenges, search for new normal during COVID-19 crisis

Unemployment rate

The 6,400 net jobs lost reflect “about 11 percent of the total active workforce" in the MSA, Bishop said.

“We were at historically low unemployment" at the start of the year, Bishop said. “That has certainly changed in this 8-month period.”

As of August, the city’s unemployment rate sat at 8.2 percent, while the county’s unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. Bishop said he suspects the difference comes from the increased amount of leisure and hospitality jobs that are focused in the city and have not yet recovered.

Additional data compiled by the Opportunity Insights economic tracker shows, as of August, employment rates countywide were down 8 percent from the start of the year. Employment rates statewide were down 6.5 percent by August.

When broken down by income potential, low wage jobs in the county have seen the most significant losses with employment rates in jobs earning less than $27,000 per year down 17.6 percent by August. Employment rates in middle wage jobs, earning between $27,000 and $60,000, were down 4.8 percent by August, while employment rates in high wage jobs earning more than $60,000 per year were up 9.4 percent by August.

Low wage jobs hit their lowest employment rates on April 23, down 22.8 percent. Middle wage jobs hit their low on April 14 (down 6.4 percent), while high wage employment was down 5.6 percent on April 4. Employment rates in all three subcategories have since been improving, with low wage jobs recovering the slowest.

Improvements and resources

Bishop, however, said the MSA is moving in a more positive direction in recent months.

“What is positive is we are seeing a rebound in those numbers,” he said. “In June, July and August, we’ve seen positive additions to the economy … as some of the phased reopening has occurred in North Carolina.

“Things are starting to settle down with employment, folks are going back to work. A lot of the benefits have dried up or evaporated from the federal level or the state level. Folks are getting back to work and we’re seeing a steady decline in that unemployment rate,” he added.

More: Help4Alamance Fund, resource collective are available

For businesses still struggling, Bishop recounted the available grants, loans and services available.

Grants include the City of Burlington’s microenterprise grants and the N.C. Mortgage, Utility and Rent Relief grants.

Loans include the Alamance County Revolving Loan Fund, N.C. Rapid Recovery Loans, the Lights-On Revolving Loan Fund, CornerSquare Community Capital loans and Federal Reserve Main Street Lending.

Business services counseling is available through Burlington’s Economic Development office, the Alamance Community College Small Business Center, the N.C. Small Business & Technology Development Center, the Alamance County Libraries and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

For information on these resources, visit www.alamancestrong.com/blog.

This article originally appeared on Times-News: 6,400 Alamance County jobs lost during COVID-19 crisis