New York State on PAUSE
Business Closures
- More than 100,000 small businesses have closed forever, resulting in millions of job losses.[1]
- Facebook survey of 86,000 small and medium size businesses reported that 33% of the businesses will not be able to reopen and 55% won’t hire the same workers. [2]
- Western New York insurance companies are refusing to cover business losses due to COVID shutdowns. [3]
Bankruptcies
- Hertz, a company that reported $9.5 billion in revenue in 2019 and has more than 38,000 active employees, filed for bankruptcy on May 22, 2020. [4]
- JCPenny, a 118 year old company with 846 stores and 90,000 employees, filed for bankruptcy on May 15th, 2020. [5]
- Diamond Offshore, a company that reported $981 million in revenue in 2019 and employed 25,000 workers filed for bankruptcy on April 26, 2020. [6]
- Frontier Communications, a company that reported $8.1 billion revenue in 2019, filed for bankruptcy on April 14, 2020. [7]
- Gold’s Gym, a fitness chain that operates 700 gyms around the world, filed for bankruptcy on May 4, 2020. [8]
- Crew, an apparel giant that employed 10,000 workers, filed for bankruptcy on May 4, 2020. [9]
- Neiman Marcus, an apparel company that employed 14,000 workers, filed for bankruptcy on May 7, 2020. [10]
Layoffs
- Airbnb is laying off 25% of its workforce. [11]
- Hertz is laying off 26% of its workforce. [12]
- United Airlines expects to lay off at least 30% of its workforce. [13]
- IBM will eliminate 2,000+ jobs. [14]
- Uber is laying off 14% of its workforce [15]
- Lyft is laying off 17% of its workforce. [16]
- Boeing is laying off 10% of its workforce. [17]
- Cirque du Soleil is laying off 95% of its workforce. [18]
GDP
- Fed reserve Bank of Atlanta is projecting GDP down 42.8 % in Q2.
Sales
- Retail sales down 16.4 % in April.
- New real estate listings down 47% in April[19]
- New car sales down 10%-20%. [20]
Production
- Factory output down 13.7% in April – worst output decrease in history.
- US industrial production fell 11.2% in April – worse number in 101 years.
Unemployment
National:
- 5 million Americans have filed for unemployment as of May 15th – Great Depression peaked at 15 million.
- According to the Federal Reserve of Chicago – real rate of unemployment in the US is 30.7 %.
- Official unemployment rates in April and May 2020: 14.7% and 13.3%. [21]
- 42% of jobs lost during the pandemic will end up being permanent.
- 40% of households with income of 40K or less say they have lost a job during the shutdown.
- According to the University of Chicago- 68% of the unemployed are eligible for unemployment. Wages greater than what their lost earnings – the average is 134% of the previous wage.
- Supplemental $600 per week relief is set to expire in July.
New York State:
- 8 Million unemployment claims.
- 4 billion in payment for first 7 weeks of the lockdown – roughly 6 times the number of claims during the 2008 financial crisis.
Erie County:
- 6%+ unemployment rate as of June 3, 2020.[22]
Homelessness
- A Study by Columbia University suggests a 45% rise in the US homeless population.
Commercial Real Estate
- Many are predicting a commercial real estate implosion.
- Median list prices are at their slowest growth in seven years. [23]
- Nearly half of commercial retail rents were not paid in April and May. [24]
Residential real estate
- 80% of would-be-buyers have either delayed their housing search or stopped it altogether. [25]
NYS Budget
- Andrew Cuomo said that New York will report a $13.3 billion shortfall in revenue compared with its original forecast — representing a 14% decline in the state’s projected receipts – April 24.
- The Empire State, which has been hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than anywhere else in the U.S., currently forecasts a fall in revenues of $61 billion between fiscal years 2021 and 2024
- An assessment done by the Boston Consulting Group predicts the state’s economy will lose a staggering $243 billion over the course of the pandemic and the economic recovery, or 14% of the state’s gross domestic product. The recovery will be longer than the Great Recession of over a decade ago.
- The financial report also predicts that the state will have to slash $10.1 billion from the current budget, leading to over $8 billion in cuts to schools, health care providers, and local governments.
Health
- Up to 154,037 Americans impacted by the Government’s response to COVID response are projected to die from drugs, alcohol, and suicide.[26]
- Two of the three main factors in increasing deaths of despair during COVID-19 are economic failure with massive unemployment and mandated social isolation for months and possible residual isolation for years.[27]
- Pronged use of face masks during work leads to discomfort that interferes with employees’ [28]
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/12/small-business-used-define-americas-economy-pandemic-could-end-that-forever/; https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/facebook-survey-details-coronavirus-small-business-devastation.html
[8] https://www.goldsgym.com/blog/restructure-official-company-statement/
[11] https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-layoffs-generous-severance-package-2020-5
[17] https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-earnings-loss-layoffs-job-cuts-coronavirus-2020-4
[20] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/business/car-sales-coronavirus/index.html
[21] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273909/seasonally-adjusted-monthly-unemployment-rate-in-the-us/
[22] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYERIE9URN
[27] Id.