On Tuesday - the final volunteer day for now - a fellow volunteer I'm friendly with told me that on Sunday she had been laid off, via email. The lay-off - a twenty-percent RIF at a very small tech company - was supposed to happen in person on Monday, but what with everyone working from home...
This is an awful time to be laid off.
My volunteer buddy will be fine. She's whip smart, funny, kind...and I'm sure she was great at her job. Plus I'm guessing/hoping/fingers-crossing that the tech sector won't be as destroyed in the coming pan-recession as other industries. But who knows?
When I got out of business school in 1981, unemployment in Massachusetts was running at about 10%. Things could get bad. Very bad.
But long run, L has the skillset, attitude, and network to do just fine.
But in the short run, she can't do the things you normally do when you lose your job. She can't really do much about finding her next job, and she also can't do the in person networking that's so important when you lose yours. When your job goes away, so does a part of your social circle. Even if you don't get together outside of work, most people do at least some socializing at work: water cooler and coffee pot chat, lunch bunch, pre-meeting checkins, sheetcake for someone's baby shower. Socializing at work: gone. When you're out of work, you really can't be looking for work 100% of your time, so you want those opportunities to break things up by meeting someone at Caffe Nero for a cup, or letting a friend take you out to lunch. And, with the St. Francis House volunteer program curtailed, L can't up her hours there.
Pink-slilpped at this point in time, it's just you and the four walls.
If you think working from home is a drag, try not working from home. All those dreaded conference calls, all those tedious emails. Vanished! (Be careful what you wish for.)
I don't envy my fellow volunteer.
But she's not alone:
This week, Massachusetts got a glimpse of what the virtual shutdown caused by the coronavirus has wrought: In one day, the state received 19,884 new initial unemployment claims. That was more than the number of claims made for all of February.
The economic landscape changed dramatically after Governor Charlie Baker Sunday night restricted restaurants to takeout and delivery only and limited public gatherings to 25, a measure that would in effect force shops, gyms, and theaters to close until April 6. Essential businesses, such as grocery stores and pharmacies, can remain open. (Source: Boston Globe)If you were a restaurant server. Job: gone. If you worked retail. Job: gone. If you cleaned hotel rooms. Job: gone. If you worked as a game-day vendor at the Boston Garden and Fenway Park. Job: gone.
Some employers - Apple (stores), Nordstrom, Jordan's Furniture, the casinos - are still paying their furloughed employees. For now. But what about for the duration if the duration goes beyond the 3 or 4 weeks we're hoping for?
Construction projects have been shut down. And if the market keeps tumbling, we're going to see some job loss in financial services.
And who's paying the Uber and Lyft drivers when most of their customers are sheltering in place?
Fingers crossed that the industries - healthcare, sciences, education, tech - that have seen Massachusetts through other tough economic times are able to weather the storm. (At least healthcare isn't going anywhere anytime soon...)
Pre-pandemic, the state's unemployment rate was 2.8%. How high can it go? Last bad time around:
The jobless rate went from 4.5 percent through the summer and fall of 2007 to 8.8 percent in the winter of 2010. It took until November 2014 for the unemployment rate to return to 4.5 percent.
On my rare forays to the grocery store or pharmacy, which I made a few of during the last couple of days, picking up some necessary (sort of) items I'd forgotten to get when I was doing my major doomsday prepper shopping - like a refill for the handsoap dispensers and some Tylenol just in case I come down with "it", and, okay, the package of Oreos that caught my eye - I've been thanking the folks being there and wishing them the best. But I'm getting the impression that some of them are just happy to still have a job.
My plan is not to see any of them until the all-clear sounds. Or should I keep running out for an occasional something-or-other so that their store will keep people on?
It could get ugly out there. Glad I'm out of the job fray.
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