Sonoma State Professor: April Unemployment Likely in “Mid-Teens”

Share with Friends

Sonoma State University economics professor Dr. Robert Eyler told Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday that the coronavirus emergency and shelter-in-place will likely push April unemployment figures for the county into the “mid-teens”

The devastating jobs forecast was not unexpected he said, and will likely mirror the situation across California and most of the nation. Eyler told the supervisors that the biggest danger is that the loss of jobs will cause businesses to close, which could create a much deeper and long-lasting economic downturn for the region and could eventually impact the housing market.

He also said the tourism industry will be hard hit, especially as large gatherings and travel continue to be restricted in the months ahead. And since Sonoma County is especially dependent on tourism, the impact may be substantial. He also cautioned that with less travel expected to take place in the coming months, the Sonoma County Airport may be severely impacted, and pre-coronavirus traffic levels may take some time to return.

Eyler presented two scenerios for job loss and recovery in California and Sonoma County, the first an optimistic one, and the second a more dire scenerio based upon another major shutdown of the economy, or “double dip” due to the coronavirus.

In the best case presented, depicted in blue, the state would lose many of the jobs added in the past few years, but would rebound to pre-virus economic and job levels by sometime late in 2021. In the second scenerio, depicted in red, the dip could wipe out five years of job gains, with recovery not coming until 2023.

He also sketched similar scenerios for Sonoma County, based on an optimistic and more dire outlook.

In the case of Sonoma County, Eyler said forecasts showed the economic shutdown triggered by the coronavirus emergency could wipe out up to 6 years or more of jobs, with recovery in 2023, and a more optimistic scenerio in blue seeing a full recovery by late 2021, or 2022.

The professor said these are only best guesses, and much will depend on how early Sonoma County and California reopen their economies, and to what degree they are able to contain or mitigate new coronavirus infections.

And he said, the worst fear is that of a large scale return of the virus, which could create a “double dip” economic downturn that would inflict much longer-term economic damage.