Fresno-area job losses mounting in COVID-19 pandemic. But there are glimmers of hiring help
In just four weeks, more than 2.8 million Californians have filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits since losing their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic, including thousands of workers in Fresno County and its neighboring Valley counties.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that almost 661,000 people in the state filed initial unemployment insurance claims in the week ending April 11. That’s on top of about 919,000 the previous week, and more than 1 million yet a week earlier.
The sweeping stay-at-home orders and closures of “non-essential” businesses enacted by state and local officials to stem the spread of the contagion – and the resulting economic calamity inflicted on workers and their families – are a financial blow coming on top of the physical toll visited upon the state and residents by COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus.
As of Thursday, 800 people in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, and 30 deaths across the Valley had been attributed to the disease.
California’s official unemployment rate in March was 5.6%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from February. But those estimates, released Friday by the Employment Development Department, are based on a sample of employers taken during the week of March 9, before the major effects of closures and layoffs took effect in the state.
In Fresno County, the March unemployment rate lurched upward by more than two percentage points from February, rising to 10.8%. Friday’s data show that the number of unemployed climbed from 38,500 in February to 49,600 in March – an increase of more than 11,000 people before the heaviest impacts on jobs from the coronavirus pandemic.
The 10.8% unemployment rate in Fresno County last month was the highest monthly figure in three years.
Similar patterns showed up in neighboring Valley counties, as well, totaling nearly 24,000 newly jobless in the region and hinting at the effects that won’t be fully captured until April unemployment figures are released next month.
Snapshot of ‘non-essential’ workforce
A detailed breakdown of new unemployment claims in the central San Joaquin Valley for the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be available from the state Employment Development Department until perhaps June. But notices filed by employers with the state under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) act give a very early look at the scale of job losses in this region of California.
More than 2,700 workers in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties have been affected by temporary business closures or layoffs since mid-March, according to WARN notices received by the state from 26 employers in the region.
And that doesn’t count another 434 more workers who are casualties of closures that were already planned even before the novel coronavirus showed up in the Valley: almost 270 workers at National Express Transit in Merced and nearly 170 workers at Olam West Coast Inc. in Lemoore.
That’s likely only a small share of total job losses in the region, because the state’s WARN Act typically requires only large employers with 75 or more workers to file a notice with the EDD for layoffs or closures that affect at least 50 employees.
Smaller companies that don’t meet those thresholds – and that includes a majority of enterprises in the Valley – don’t have to file those notices. And many of those are among the businesses feeling the brunt of the societal shutdown.
The largest single shutdown reflected in the WARN notices is at the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino in Coarsegold. There, the temporary closure notice reported that 1,065 workers were being laid off effective March 20. When the closure was announced, casino management reported that employees’ medical, dental and vision benefits would continue uninterrupted.
Chukchansi Gold is one of five casinos operated by Indian tribes in the region; all have closed to follow state and local guidelines against the spread of the virus. The others – Table Mountain in Friant, Tachi Palace in Lemoore, Eagle Mountain in Porterville and Mono Wind in Auberry – have not filed WARN notices detailing the number of affected employees.
Other significant layoffs included in the WARN notices are 226 employees at McDonald’s restaurants operated by RLMK Inc. in Tulare County; 340 workers at a trio of Fresno restaurants operated by Fansler Restaurant Group, Westwood’s BBQ & Spice Co., Pismo’s Coastal Grill and Yosemite Ranch Steak House; 223 layoffs at the Club One Casino cardroom in downtown Fresno; and 196 employees at The Cheesecake Factory in Fresno.
Nearly 2,400 of the lost jobs in the WARN notices, in fact, are in the leisure/hospitality industry, including casinos, restaurants and hotels.
Not all is bleak
There are some glimmers of hope out there for displaced workers, however, as The Bee’s Bethany Clough reported several weeks ago. Some food- and product-delivery companies have been hiring up nationally, including in the Valley, to meet increasing demand for services as people practice social distancing and shelter in place. Other companies deemed “essential,” including grocery and drug stores, are adding staff to keep up with their needs.
Among those is Amazon. The company is hiring about 75,000 workers nationwide – on top of bringing on about 100,000 new employees in full- and part-time jobs in March – “to help serve customers during this unprecedented time,” Amazon posted on its website.
An Amazon representative said that is expected to translate to about 1,500 workers in California’s Central Valley, where Amazon has fulfillment centers in Fresno, Tracy, Patterson, Stockton and Sacramento.
OnwardCA.org, a website developed by a collaboration of technology companies including Fresno’s Bitwise Industries, has a database of tens of thousands of immediate job openings statewide, including in the central San Joaquin Valley. A cursory look at its dynamic job-search system, which seeks to provide employment leads based on a job-seeker’s ZIP code, prior experience, and salary history, indicated at least 500 jobs within a 50-mile radius of central Fresno.
Lawn care and insurance sales
The gig economy is also providing some opportunities, said Jeremy Yamaguchi, CEO of Lawn Love, a lawn care company with locations nationwide including Fresno. “We’ve recently seen a huge increase in the number of Fresno residents applying to work with us,” Yamaguchi said. “While most other home service categories are severely struggling, lawn care has remained almost unaffected by the pandemic.”
Lawn care and landscaping are categorized as essential services that can continue to operate during the pandemic.
Lawn Love requires its providers to have their own truck and equipment as well as a year of professional lawn-care experience. The company’s services are managed remotely via smartphone or computer, and clients can get a quote, schedule services and pay remotely through a smartphone app – features that Yamaguchi said make it easier to adhere to social-distancing guidelines.
Tim Jeans, regional manager for Advocate Health Advisors in Fresno, said that displaced workers who may want to make a long-term change in their careers should consider the insurance industry, particularly in the specialty of Medicare.
“The nutshell version is that Medicare plans and sales is a year-round opportunity and a high-need area,” Jeans said, because each day, more people reach the age of 65 and are eligible for Medicare coverage.
Estimates from the U.S. Department of Labor reported that in 2018, almost 1,500 people worked as insurance sale agents in the central San Joaquin Valley, with median wages ranging from about $53,000 to $63,000 a year depending on the county.
It’s not an instantaneous job for someone who needs immediate work after losing a job to the pandemic. It requires an insurance license, and the Medicare insurance field requires specialized training.
But “you don’t get laid off from being an insurance agent offering Medicare,” Jeans added. “You can do it from home, you can do it at your own pace. … I work with people who do this almost as a hobby, they do 10 to 11 sales a year, they make their commissions, and they’re happy.” For others, it’s a full-time occupation.
Commissions for sales of Medicare coverage plans are set by the federal government. After that, “You get renewals, so there’s long-term income,” Jeans said. “Changes in the economy don’t have much impact on this revenue stream.”
