My brother and I were just talking about how we don’t know too many people who aren’t working still (in Ohio, where our shutdown is moderate). Many of our friends are able to work from home (lawyers and law-adjacent, programmers (like me), teachers, general office workers), many are working in essential businesses (diesel mechanic, forklift mechanic, industrial pump repair, grocery warehouse, commercial food delivery, local bank branch) and then several of our friends are in health care.
A lot of people I know happen to be retired, or stay-at-home parents, so they weren’t going out to work anyway.
My only friends who are dealing with unemployment are a restaurant server and a bartender who part-times at a thrift store so both her jobs are closed. My tai chi instructor isn’t working due to his gym being closed, and everyone who works at our city Rec Center is out of a job at the moment.
So many places around here (our city is full of retail, restaurant and service) are still open so a lot of people are working, but I’m sure they’re running on smaller staffs.
Anyway, in your experience, who, other than food service and gym/recreation, isn’t working right now? I know I’m overlooking a ton of jobs!!
The girl child in our home works in retail. The store is closed and she is being paid for not working. She also has a job doing medical transcribing. For that job she is going in to the office 2 days a week.
I got officially furloughed yesterday after being off work for a month (with pay).
I work at a private “City Club”; They worked with Missouri unemployment and streamlined us into benefits starting next week. The club will continue to pay our TOTAL insurance premiums through the layoff.
I STILL have not got my “stimulus check” though I did file and receive my tax refund through direct deposit. I use the website daily to check but my status always says “According to information that we have on file, we cannot determine your eligibility for a payment at this time.” Anyone have a clue?
My partner has been out of work for six weeks with no unemployment insurance available as he’s a sole proprietor hair stylist. Making things slightly worse is that he’s been paying his business taxes by check, so the IRS had no banking info for him.
I wonder if hair salons will be able to open up sooner than other places. They are no doubt cleaner than, say, grocery stores and they can stagger appointments.
Everyone in my household is still working. My daughter is a high school senior and was a hostess at a restaurant prior to the outbreak. Once the restaurant closed down she found a job within a week at a produce company putting together baskets of produce for delivery. In general, here in Corpus Christi, it seems that it’s mostly the oilfield and refinery workers that are hurting.
I got laid off from the auto parts plant a month ago, on Friday March 20th. That week it went from “we will probably be requiring overtime next weekend” on Monday to “Here’s your pink slip” on Friday. Orders for parts from the customers just dried up.
This is not to say that things are really bad yet though. Work is talking about a slow startup in May, again depending on customer orders. But since many of the customers are in the States, it is entirely unclear whether they will be in a condition to restart soon.
In the meantime I am filling out EI forms online and receiving the CERB benefit ($500/week, around what the original EI would have paid; the CERB program started the next week and absorbed all the EI applications in progress.)
And I am going for walks and writing. In a way, this is a strange opportunity.
I work in an essential factory. About a third of us have to go in every day. The big boss just sent around an email saying that if there was enough interest, the company would bring in a stylist and give everyone who wanted on a free haircut.
I presume that they just show up with clippers or something. I have long hair and it’s been like seven years since my last haircut. I skimmed the email and deleted it. I’m not sure what the exact plan is. Our place is very by the book so they must have vetted it somehow.
I resigned from my paralegal job in mid-February to finally take some time off to recover from a bad concussion several months ago. At the time, there were like 20 COVID-19 cases on the West Coast. I figured I would take off until my brain improved, and then wouldn’t have any problem finding a new job as soon as I was ready. Recruiters had been contacting me regularly.
Now I am thinking I might be out of work longer than planned. I’m asthmatic (though it’s quite well-controlled) and really not keen on being around other people right now. And I have no idea what the job market for positions like mine is going to be. At the rate we’re going, my job is likely to become a felony.
Yep, the rest of the office is working from home. Two days a week, two of the admins go to the office to photocopy petitions for filing with USCIS. (The volume of documentation is such that it’s impractical to do the copying on a home machine - they can be hundreds of pages each, and there are sometimes scores of petitions.) One of my former colleagues also has to go to various foreign consulates to transact client business in person.
In Illinois, legal and other professional services are considered “essential,” so it’s legit.
My sister isn’t working. She’s a manager for a chain clothing store and they’re shut down.
In my actual household, I’m working from home and my older son works at Target. My wife was laid off in November and this hasn’t helped the work search but she’s actually had a promising string of interviews with all of them saying they’re looking to hire someone to work from home until they’re back in the office.
I have an entertainment company, we do productions at festivals and events. No work for the foreseeable future and eventually when they allow big events again there will be a recession. And of course, summer is when we make our money.
There are two types of financial support that should be coming in, but they aren’t. There are problems on their end. I spent several days on the phone to the council. They seem to have a script that goes: “I see, well, I don’t know… Good luck with that, have a nice day!”
I invested a lot in marketing at the start of the year and it was really paying off. Had some new performances worked out, working with the costume designer, programmer, painter. We had a new regular beach gig that was going to be amazing, our second regular gig which is… the dream. This year was going to be huge. I was bracing myself for the amount of work but it was going to be so much fun, too. And also food, rent, a future. All that jazz.
And now somehow chasing after the financial support and getting everything in order is actually keeping me busy, which is annoying because that’s not my job, it’s not growing my company and it is so far not translating into money.
I’m working from home, but my design agency has now furloughed about half the staff, with the government paying 80% of their wages.
My brother started a blinds business a few months ago, which involves visiting people’s homes to measure up and install. So his business has ground to a halt, and he can’t claim the government payments for self-employed because he’s been doing it for less than a year. He’s living off savings at this point.
My next door neighbours own a toyshop which has had to close for now, but they’re trying to survive by doing online orders/home deliveries.