BRAC financial indicators clearly show location down virtually 21,000 work opportunities

The Baton Rouge Spot Chamber right now published its very first COVID-19 economic indicator report of the year, which examines and assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the regional financial state. 

“As the 12 months wound to an conclude, the area economic climate ongoing to present signals of recovery, but also served a reminder that there is still much do the job to be done,” says Andrew Fitzgerald, senior director of organization intelligence for BRAC, in a geared up assertion. “There was good career development in excess of-the-thirty day period, but we however saw an inflow of new unemployment statements in the 7 days soon after Christmas. Vacation to perform remained sturdy, but journey to leisure sites shrank, underscoring the issues for companies in the leisure and hospitality sector.”

The region’s challenging-strike leisure and hospitality sector accounts for one-third of the complete 20,800 careers nevertheless to be recovered. When the sector added 900 positions from October to November, it faces ongoing authorities limits on reopening.

The recently revived Paycheck Security Plan could spur investing to assist each the hospitality sector and the region’s smaller corporations. Compact organization profits continues to be down in Ascension Parish (-3.3%), and appreciably down in Livingston (-31.5%) and East Baton Rouge (-21.9%) parishes.

Key findings from this month’s dashboard contain: 

• Unemployment claims rose in the 1st week of 2021, but it is unclear regardless of whether this is due to task decline or the extension of unemployment benefits by the federal governing administration.

• Hotel occupancy was better than the final 7 days in 2019, 37% to 34%, but revenues this yr had been somewhere around $100,000 lower for the 7 days.

• Mobility was down for most places exterior of the place of work, indicating that a substantial number of enterprises are nonetheless open up in the region. See the whole report.