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    • 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.