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California has seen a major surge in unemployment insurance claims and is bracing for a continued spike as a result of the global spread of COVID-19, which has forced a statewide shelter-in-place order for the Golden State's nearly 40 million residents, state officials said.
As of Thursday, California's Unemployment Development Dept. reported "a huge spike in the number of claims coming in from impacted Californians" with the 58,208 claims processed in the week prior, from Sunday March 8 through Saturday March 14, up from 43,385 claims the week prior, according to EDD spokesman Barry C. White. Those numbers dwarf the roughly 41,000 claims that have the recent average over the last few months.
The numbers do not reflect the number of applications received by unemployed workers in any given week, just those who submit claims, so the numbers may not accurately reflect the totality of the numbers of workers who have lost their jobs. The data also doesn't take into account workers who have had their hours reduced but are not qualified for unemployment insurance.
"The EDD is applying a variety of strategies to direct as many staff resources as possible to keep up with the increased claim load," White said.
University of California, Los Angeles economists recently predicted Monday that the U.S. has entered a recession as a result of an end-to-end disruption in global supply chains that have shocked both the supply and demand side of markets. The U.S. recession is expected to last through September, with California's downturn expected to be more severe due to its larger reliance on tourism and trans-Pacific transportation.
California's specific employment is expected to contract by 0.7% in 2020 with the second and third quarters contracting at the annual rate of 2.6%. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 6.3% by the end of 2020 and is expected to increase into 2021 at an average of 6.6%. By first quarter 2021, California is expected to lose more than 280,000 payroll jobs with more than one-third in leisure, hospitality, transportation and warehousing.
Peter Pham, co-founder of Science Inc. in Santa Monica, said the economic ramifications of the novel coronavirus are going to be "profound."
"Next week, I think you're gonna see massive layoffs like 20,000, 30,000 people at one company," he told dot.LA on Thursday. "You're going to see furloughs of people...You're going to see a reduction in hours for hourly workers that puts them in a really weird position where they can't file for unemployment. But it saves the company on tax issues.
"There will be a lot of corporate manipulation unfortunately around what's going to happen. We're just seeing the beginning of the economic collapse that we're going to see. It's going to be bad," Pham said.
Blind, an anonymous professional network has been leveraging its 3.2 million users — all verified via their work emails — to ask questions about job security, income issues, and working from home, amid the spread of COVID-19.
Blind's users primarily occupy the tech space, with 60,000 of its employees at Amazon, others on the platform work in finance and telecom.
In its newest survey, Blind found that among 3,000 respondents, more than 57% feared being laid off. That fear broke down to nearly 88% of employees at Expedia, nearly 38% at Facebook, more than 46% at Amazon, and more than 45% at Apple.
Meanwhile, nearly 25% of those surveyed have found new ways to supplement their income, including nearly 53% of eBay employees, nearly 20% of Amazon employees, more than 20% of those at Google, and more than 37% of those at Apple.
A good portion of employees — more than 40% — remain relatively optimistic that life will go "back to normal" in six months to a year. Three percent of employees think it will take 1-3 months while nearly 14% believe it will take more than a year.
The survey opened on Thursday and the company plans to keep it open throughout the weekend.
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An anonymous professional network has been leveraging its 3.2 million users — all verified via their work emails — to ask questions about job security, income issues, and working from home, amid the spread of COVID-19 through 46 states, per the most recent data available Friday.
The survey, conducted by Blind, from March 9 through March 11, received 7,000 responses to questions about concerns about job security due to economic trends as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, and whether there is concern about total income being negatively affected by COVID-19. Blind's users primarily occupy the tech space, with 60,000 of its professionals employees at Amazon, others on the platform work in finance and telecom.
Here are the key takeaways from the March 9 through March 11 survey:
- Nearly 54% of professionals are concerned about their job security
- More than half of tech and finance professionals are worried about job security, with employees at Expedia, Uber, Cisco and Intel, among the companies where employees are most concerned about their job security
- More than 62% of professionals think their total income will be negatively affected by COVID-19, with employees at Cisco, Uber, Facebook and Expedia most concerned
- More than 67% of Google employees fear their total income will be adversely affected
Here's a snapshot of survey results related to questions about working from home, taken March 1 through March 4:
- More than 76% of Amazon's employees are working from home, according to data from the survey taken by 5,942 professionals.
- Only 30% of Google employees were working from home at the same time, and they were not happy about it.
- On March 1, nearly 68% of the professionals surveyed were hesitant to go to work. That number rose to more than 76% by March 4.
- The fear has started to impact productivity with numbers of those who feel that's the case rising from 36% on March 1 to more than 47% on March 4.
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Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter @latams. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my Signal.
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