Covid-19 Labor Market Information Updates
This web page will provide weekly and monthly updates, when available, unemployment, industry and occupational information as they relate to the economic impact of the Covid-19 virus in the region. Information will be sourced from the MA Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, the MassHire Hampden County Career Centers, Labor Insight-Burning Glass and EMSI Analytics Tools and other regional, state and national resources.
Economic Analysis Extract for 2020 Quarter 1
The Massachusetts and U.S. economies plunged into a recession in the second half of March. The negative growth rate estimates for the first quarter of this year do not reflect the severity of the COVID-19-induced downturn. This is because the economic indicators used to estimate growth primarily reflect economic activity that preceded the sharp downturn. Two key labor market indicators for March – payroll employment and the unemployment rate – reflect the week of March 8 through 14, before the shutdown of non-essential businesses began in Massachusetts on March 24 and before the sharp rise in unemployment claims began on March 15. Regular state sales tax revenues in March reflect purchases made in February, and first quarter wage and salary income include apparently strong “bonus season” income realized in January and February. After growing by a combined 14,200 jobs in January and February, Massachusetts payroll employment declined 18,000 in March.
Source: Alan Clayton-Matthews April 29, 2020; Mass Benchmarks, Northeastern University, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Hampden County Recently Separated Claimants
Below is a chart and table showing the recently separated workers for the past 90 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. EOLWD generates a new UI claimants file of permanently separated (those receiving their first check) each Sunday for the previous week. This is a dynamic data that changes on a daily basis so new file data is added to the older data to search for those laid off in the last 90 days. This is the population that we filter through for this report. The entire universe of UI claimants, however, is much higher. Also this does not includes claimants with return to work dates, in WorkShare, are furloughed, etc. which do not come over in their weekly file.
Occupational Description | Claims | Occupational Description | Claims |
Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations | 2041 | Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations | 528 |
Office and Administrative Support Occupations | 1816 | Education, Training, and Library Occupations | 435 |
Sales and Related Occupations | 1416 | Construction and Extraction Occupations | 406 |
Management Occupations | 1182 | Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations | 352 |
Personal Care and Service Occupations | 998 | Business and Financial Operations Occupations | 262 |
Healthcare Practitioner and Technical Occupations | 872 | Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations | 225 |
Production Occupations | 792 | Community and Social Services Occupations | 212 |
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations | 779 | Protective Service Occupations | 164 |
Healthcare Support Occupations | 602 | Architecture and Engineering Occupations | 74 |
Computer and Mathematical Occupations | 68 | Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations | 50 |
Legal Occupations | 54 | Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations | 11 |
Source: MA Executive Office of Labor & Workforce Development- Recently Separated Claimants 90 day Report; 5-1-2020
COVID-19 Impact Planning Report for Hampden County
The U.S. Census Bureau released a new resource page on Census.gov to help federal agencies, businesses, and communities make decisions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar to the Census Bureau’s resources pages created during natural disasters, this resource page includes information on population demographics, economic indicators and businesses. It features a new interactive data hub that centralizes already-released data from the American Community Survey and the County Business Patterns program to facilitate users’ access to data useful in pandemic-related decision making. The data hub, released as a beta version, will be updated periodically as the situation changes and as feedback is received from users. For example, age and pre-existing social vulnerability could be two factors that help provide a glimpse of American communities that might experience a punctuated demand for coronavirus (COVID-19) related healthcare.
Click here for more information.