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.
<p>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. </p><p>"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.</p><p><a href="https://dot.la/coronavirus-recession-ucla-prediction-2645502115.html" target="_self">University of California, Los Angeles economists recently predicted Monday that the U.S. has entered a recession</a> 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Peter Pham, co-founder of Science Inc. in Santa Monica, said the economic ramifications of the novel coronavirus are going to be "profound."</p><p><span></span>"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.</p><p>"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.</p><p>Blind, an anonymous professional network <a href="https://dot.la/coronavirus-tech-professionals-survey-2645481997.html" target="_self">has been leveraging its 3.2 million users — all verified via their work emails — to ask questions</a> about job security, income issues, and working from home, amid the spread of COVID-19.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.<br/></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>The survey opened on Thursday and the company plans to keep it open throughout the weekend.</p><p><em>_</em><em>_</em></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at </em><em>tami(at)dot.la</em><em>, or ask for my Signal.</em></p>
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Jamie Montgomery couldn't sleep for several nights as he weighed whether to move ahead with his annual two-day venture capital-fest in Santa Monica. This week's conference is billed as an all-star lineup of business leaders that includes the likes of bond king Michael Milken.
But, Montgomery — the founder and managing director of Los Angeles-based March Capital Partners — found himself slammed by reports of other major conferences shuttering due to concerns about coronavirus. Facebook yanked its annual F8 developer meeting in May, the Game Developers Conference scheduled in San Francisco for later this month was canceled, and the YPO Edge summit planned for March was dropped.
Ultimately, he gave it a green light.
<p>The annual convention that draws a thousand attendees from venture capitalists to entrepreneurs is on. "There's been a lot of anxiety around this," Montgomery told dot.LA. "We made the right decision for us."</p><p>The influential summit will be. held at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica, where 140 private companies will pitch their startups attracts at an event attended by more than 1,000 founders, top-flight investors, entrepreneurs, and executives.<br/></p><p>A meeting Montgomery held with a health expert on Saturday — he wouldn't say. who he met with — solidified his decision. Among the factors is a view among some that coronaviruses as a group are considered cold-weather viruses, and that only 5% of the attendees were coming from overseas – where the bulk of outbreaks have been. Montgomery has also been consulting with local health officials.</p><p>So far, there are about 90,000 novel coronavirus cases worldwide. More than 100 of them have been reported in the U.S. and there have been nine deaths recorded as of Tuesday. To slow the spread of COVID-19, the Center for Disease Control said schools, events and business may have to be interrupted.</p><p>But in Los Angeles, considered the U.S. gateway to Asia, there's been no known outbreak and health officials have said the risk is still low. Big venues such as the city's convention center haven't had any major cancellations.</p><p>"We really respect everyone's decision as to whether to attend," Montgomery said. "I am not going to encourage you, whether it's you or your staff. It's a personal decision. You may have family concerns about a loved one or someone that's in a health state."</p><p>To offset any potential spread of the virus, conference planners are placing hand sanitizer in every room and the cleaning staff will be wiping down common surfaces with antiseptic wipes hourly. Attendees are encouraged to wash their hands frequently and to refrain from shaking hands. There will also be a physician on hand. Anyone showing symptoms of a cold or flu will be asked to leave the summit and those exhibiting signs of COVID-19, which include a fever and difficulty breathing, will be isolated and tested further at a medical facility.</p><p>"What they have proposed makes a lot of sense," said Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious disease expert at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health.</p><p>Klausner added that while social gatherings pose a risk in increasing transmission, there's no evidence that this is the case when attendees practice good hygiene. He said there's no evidence of ongoing transmission in Southern California. That could change; COVID-19 symptoms take up to two weeks to appear.</p><p>Unlike airborne influenza, which spreads quickly and can infect individuals multiple times, Klausner said people build an immunity to coronavirus, which is spread through respiratory droplets. All that tends to make outbreaks more localized. When cases do appear, Klausner said, most people will be either asymptomatic or exhibit mild symptoms. Less than 20% of confirmed cases have been severe, and just 2% have been fatal.</p><p>"The overall risk to the general U.S. population is still very low," he said.</p><p>Peter Pham, co-founder of venture capital firm Science Inc. isn't too worried.</p><p>"I'm an optimistic person and I also follow data," Pham said. "As of last (Sunday) night, the risk for younger folks is really, really low," he said.</p><p>Pham holds an exclusive dinner at Gjelina in Venice during the conference for some of the biggest names in Los Angeles' venture capital. Every year, you can count on at least one high-profile attendee. This year, it's Honey, who recently notched LA.'s biggest exit, with a $4 billion sale to Paypal. Dinner talk, he expects, will be much more focused on the city's next newsmaker rather than fears of the virus, as attendees focus on connecting with big money investors.</p><p>Hopefully, he said, someone will score a big check. In the meantime, "I will remind everyone to wash their hands, we are in a post-handshake world. Let's go with the elbow bumps and fist bumps."</p><p>At the conference, Montgomery said he won't be shying away from the topic. "Coronavirus is top of mind," he said. "We have a session on that on day two to talk about its public health and the economic impact this year."</p><div class="horizontal-rule"></div><p><em><strong>Editor's note</strong>: Shortly after this story was published, Kaiser Permanente confirmed that they were treating a new case of coronavirus in Los Angeles County. The patient is in in self-isolation and being treated on an outpatient basis. </em></p>
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