Lost your job during coronavirus pandemic? Here are some new ones to try
Looking for a job? Try pharmacies or fast-food restaurants.
They have the most private coronavirus-related job openings in the state, according to a survey by Zippia, a Millbrae-based firm that helps people find jobs and careers. It surveyed employment listings throughout the country, seeking jobs created largely because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The downside: Those jobs often pay less than the ones that are being lost. And while Zippia found hundreds of California openings, the vacancies don’t come close to matching the number of jobs that have been lost during the coronavirus outbreak.
The best city to find jobs in the state — and one of the best in the nation — is Santa Rosa.
“The city has a high number of essential workers, particularly in the healthcare industry, that provide some stability,” explained Chris Kolmar, Zippia co-founder. Santa Rosa was the eighth most promising city in the nation for COVID-related jobs. Madison, Wisconsin and Charlottesville, Virginia top the city list.
Most of the available jobs in California fall into two broad categories: Essential workers, such as first responders, and workers in fast food and retail outlets that have been allowed to remain open.
“While some jobs are disappearing, others are being created in order to help tackle the coronavirus and to meet new demand in select retail and fast-food restaurants,” said Zippia’s analysis.
“The bulk of the jobs are lower paying and unskilled, which probably isn’t tempting a lot of the newly unemployed to give up the stimulus unemployment bonus and go back into the workforce,” it said.
California’s unemployment rate in April was 15.5%, topping the 12.3% rate during the Great Recession era in 2010. In April alone, 2.3 million jobs were lost in the state.
Each of the 11 different categories of jobs saw losses in April. Topping the list was the leisure & hospitality industry, with 866,200 jobs gone. That was far above runner-up trade, transportation and utilities, with 388,799 losses. Mining and logging had the fewest job losses, with 500.
Statewide, California’s most common private job opening in the Covid era is for pharmacy technicians. Zippia counted 643 openings in its mid-May report.
Next are: Crew member, 483; store associate, 429; shift supervisor, 383 and shift manager, 337; guest services leader, 201 and department manager, 196. Most of those listings are for jobs in fast-food restaurants.
Following that is beauty consultant, with 156 openings. “That’s how pharmacies and box stores list their workers who man the hygiene/cosmetic sections,” Kolmar explained.
One unusually high listing, compared to nationwide job openings, is education, with 111 openings for teachers.
Jobs are available for essential workers, though California ranked 20th in a ranking of best states for finding such jobs. They’re defined as healthcare workers, people involved in farming, fishing or forestry, production and transportation workers, and protective services such as law enforcement.
The ranking took Census Bureau data, then compared the total number of workers in relevant industries to the total number of workers in a state. The higher the percentage of essential workers, the better a state fared. Utah, Nevada and Connecticut topped the list.
In all, 964 different California jobs were counted in the Zippia survey, and 501 had one opening each. Among them: Elementary school principal, elementary school counselor, football coach, money counter, restaurant manager, senior civil engineer, swim coach and web software engineer.
The average national salary for a pharmacy technician is $37,000, according to Zippia data. Other averages: Crew member, $27,000; store associate, $35,000; shift supervisor, $29,000 and shift manager, $27,000.
The median household income in California as of July, 2019, was $71,228, according to the Census Bureau. Per capita income was $35,021.
In Sacramento County, the median was $63,902. Other medians: Fresno County, $51,261; Merced County, $50,129; Stanislaus County, $57,387 and San Luis Obispo County, $70,699.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Lost your job during coronavirus pandemic? Here are some new ones to try."
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