Dukes County is continuing to see a massive increase in initial unemployment claims filed since the start of the virus surge in March, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.
According to the office website, the commonwealth saw 55,223 individuals file an initial claim for standard unemployment insurance (UI) from April 26 to May 2. Since March 15, a total of 777,232 initial claims have been filed for unemployment. For the week of April 26 to May 2, there were a total of 556,272 continued claims.
Apart from conventional UI, around 185,000 claimants have filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) since April 20.
Based on industry statistics recorded by the office, the retail trade, and food and accomodation, are the two industries that are being hit hardest by the public health crisis and ensuing restrictions. The healthcare and social assistance economies are also being drastically affected.
Because Dukes County and the municipalities it contains (towns on Martha’s Vineyard) are largely seasonal economies, the region is particularly hard-hit. As restaurants, hotels, and retail stores are shuttered or operating at greatly reduced capacity, the many seasonal workers that sustain the Island’s economy don’t have jobs. Many establishments that operate during the winter require the influx of summer revenue to keep their businesses afloat in the off-season, and many of those places have already been closed for months.
Adam Turner, executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC), said he is not surprised the unemployment numbers are so high in Dukes County, given its seasonality.
“Given the economic state of the Island being largely a service economy, and an economy that gears up around this time every year, I’m not at all surprised we would have a higher unemployment than some mainland communities,” Turner said. “There are tons of people that rely on and are preparing for the summer all year.”
According to an economic model created by Applied Geographic Solutions (AGS), and a graphic map created by the Pioneer Institute of Public Policy Research based on that model, Dukes County’s unemployment rate as of May 2 is estimated to be 26.6 percent. The state’s overall unemployment rate is 25 percent.
Although the graphic map created by Pioneer, a nonpartisan think tank based in Boston, is not based on on-the-ground data, AGS’ methodology for aggregating information is based largely on weekly Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment insurance claim reports and labor force data.
Since the hospitality industry has been so drastically affected by state travel guidelines, dissuading many from vacationing, statistics show that waterside communities or those with seasonal economies are being hit hardest.
“Due to the concentration of jobs in hospitality, which has seen the highest number of unemployment claims since March 2020, municipalities in Western Massachusetts as well as on Cape Cod and surrounding Islands may experience some of the highest unemployment rates in the commonwealth,” the Pioneer website states.
Martha’s Vineyard is about to experience an economic “correction” (as they call it on The Street) many decades in the making. Having put all our eggs into the summer hospitality basket, as it were, we now have very little actual productive activity, or to put it another way, little ability to generate foreign exchange. Fishing, farming and construction remain – not enough to sustain at present population level.
This is more accurate then most people realize. It’s time we take care of the locals and make sure we are sustainable, in good times and bad.
Unfortunately that is not possible as the island is not tethered to a major metropolitan area and I don’t see big corporations jumping at the chance of adding a corporate campus to the island. The island can barely support existing small businesses with the current year round population. Unfortunately the biggest non-tourism sector, construction, is also going to get pummeled if the current economic environment does not change, just look at the GFC for a taste of what could happen. For better and for worse tourism will drive the island economy, the state and local governments should do what they can to make the most of what will be a terrible season and incentivize a rebound in activity in 2021.
This island has all the requirements necessary for light manufacturing, assembly work and even pharmaceuticals, save only one – the political climate to attract. When we have disengaged from the Chinese dependency many opportunities are going to arise. We should start planning and acting to woo a share of this for our people.
Will never happen. There will never be a complete decoupling from the Chinese economy and the manufacturing that does and will occur in the US will not be located in the Northeast because the cost of living is too high. As an example, look where most of the new auto manufacturing plants have been based, the South, where cost of living is lower (Meaning you can pay lower wages) and the states provide massive tax exemptions. Massachusetts would never enact tax legislation that would promote manufacturing as long as we have folks in charge that support the Green New Deal agenda. As for pharmaceuticals, more likely that sector comes back to Puerto Rico where you already have the trained work force and infrastructure to support mass scale production. The only reason that sector ever left PR en masse was the expiration of tax credits for the companies that located production there. IF you were able to square the circle on those critical points, there is no way the MVC would ever allow this type of industry on a scale that would be able to support the existing year round population in a meaningful way.
The first step would be to analyze the situation – paragraph (1). How did we get to where we are economically? Who are players and movers and what are their motives?
I’d hold off on the doom and gloom scenario until the summer season has ended. By all indications this will be a productive and really fun summer. Those who disagree truly have their eyes closed or are far removed from the current business cycle.
Many thanks to Mayor Vaughan for the optimistic viewpoint!
The current business cycle is an economic contraction greater than the financial crisis in 2008-2009 and the worst since the depression. Over 35 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last 6 weeks and GDP is projected to decline at double digits in the second quarter. That is the current business cycle.
The stock market is more than 2.5 times higher now than in 2009. Inventory for properties for sale on the island is less than half of what it was in 2009 which will help to avoid any pressure to lower prices. Most white collar workers, our visitor demographic, have continued to be employed. New demand for vacation rentals, especially longer term rentals has skyrocketed. Will this be a great summer, maybe not, but it will be much better than what the doom and gloomers are predicting.
I’m not going to argue with you on the state of the economy (very poor) as every leading economic indicator is severely depressed at the moment and those invested in the stock market still have account values over 15% lower than the levels in February. We will recover from this, but as the FED chairman Jerome Powell stated Sunday this will take time and will require substantially more stimulus. You can be optimistic, but you can’t ignore reality.
Your own words- “a productive and really fun summer.” Sure, we can wait and see before drawing a final conclusion, but you sound like a crackpot using words like this. The island isn’t going to be completely abandoned, as there will be people coming to rent homes to get away from the cities. That said, the economic model for the last 25 years has involved large numbers of people coming on crowded boats, crowding into shops and restaurants, and leaving their money behind. You have restaurants hoping to operate at 50% capacity, assuming people are willing to eat in an environment where the wait staff is treating the place like a bio-hazard zone in order to comply with safety protocols. By really fun, are you referring to the Agricultural Fair, The Fireworks, The Beach Road music festival, the 4th of July Parade and Fireworks, the Playhouse, the children’s summer camps? Maybe in your fantasy world those are still going full speed ahead.
“By all Indications”- with all due respect sir, I challenge you to cite a single credible indication to back up your point of view. I doubt you’ll be able to come up with anything besides your own fanciful thinking.
You couldn’t find one unemployed person to talk to for this story? Every story always focuses on the views of the 1%. You’ll talk to the owner, or the general manager, and report whatever lies they want to tell without providing a fair full view. You never even consider the views of the common person. Running a story like this, but having the only quote be from the Executive Director of the MVC is such a fail, but it’s the playbook for how you treat every story.
You mean fair and balanced?
Like Fox!
No easy answers to this problem. But, note that the summer tourism economy is much more sustainable than many other industries. Just compare the economy of the island to many other places in the country. A lot of the “unemployed” appear to be working under the table, based on people I know. At the moment, UI is paying pretty well and people do not appear to be anxious to get back to on-the-books “work.”
Islanders have never worked under the table while collecting Unemployment Insurance.
They never will.
The whole island and every industry relies on summer people, their money and their taxes. There’s not 1 industry on this island that would survive without them or their cash. You all better hope this corrects itself rapidly or start applying for welfare, SNAP or look at the steamship schedule because you’ll have to leave the island for work. What comes around, with all the moaning about summer visitors or the day workers, is going to go around 10 fold.
All lives are gifts from God and matter. That said, look at the obituaries for the last 3 months and most of the ages, rest their dear souls, are in the 80s, 90s, and in some cases, over 100. There has been no mass casualties of lives cut short by Covid. It’s not that it should be taken lightly, but to decimate livelihoods, businesses, careers and educations for a risk that most people have a 99.4% chance or better of surviving will be seen in history as a questionable decision at best.
Every person who died was someone’s brother, sister, father, mother, or friend. There’s a reason we kept the death toll down to “only” 5705 dear souls (so far) in Massachusetts. It’s because all of the irritating regulations that people now want to drop. Thank the people distancing, wearing masks, suffering because their business is closed because they saved the lives of people that might have been your wife, or father, or sister or possibly even you.
Zephyr, I’m in no way suggesting we abandon basic safety protocols until such a time as a vaccine is available. However, the violin theatrics over brothers, sisters, mothers fathers, friends, pets, dentists, etc. is a bit much. People whose businesses are bankrupt, whose savings accounts are depleted, whose careers are derailed, whose retirement is delayed indefinitely; those are people’s fathers/sisters/brothers/mothers/etc.etc. as well. The casualties from despair and economic decimation will sadly equal, if not overshadow, the casualties from the virus. A sensible balance point between caution and productivity is essential.
For BSD2006 -You have correctly identified one of the major obstacles, namely the MVC and other anti business governmental bodies. The other two are 1) the defeatist/disconnected attitude of the voters here, and (2) the concerted and often subtle opposition of the forces here that benefit from the present feudal arrangement. Where do you fit in?
Very simply, I am pro business and will invest in ventures that will pay an appropriate return on the risk that I am taking. Manufacturing will never provide that return on MV given both the political and structural issues that I previously outlined. In light of that reality, I hope that the medical situation improves for this season and that our elected officials do everything they can to promote a robust recovery in 2021.
Glad to hear that you are pro business, and by the tone of your writing it seems you are a cautious and informed investor/businessman. I do reject your conclusion that year round jobs generating business cannot come to MV. BTW,I do not restrict the possibilities to “manufacturing” per se. Finally, as a sound thinker and businessman you must be well aware of the decades long anti business attitude of our elected officials here. Your hope that said officials can “promote a robust recovery” is forlorn inasmuch as they have presided over the situation in which we now find our island.
Unfortunately as you mentioned both state and local officials have not supported a pro business agenda for some time. I do indeed hope that some of the structural changes can be made to make additional year round jobs more available and that in the mean time local leaders pragmatically open the economy.
Thirty years ago there was a technical/light manufacturing company on the Island. Once it hit about eight employees it moved off. It was to difficult to get customers and vendors to the Island and lack of technical skills in the labor force.
Light industry requires land at a reasonable price, building construction at a reasonable price, labor at a reasonable price, shipping at a reasonable price. MV has none of these. Compared to North Carolina our costs are several times higher. It simply not going to happen.
Alright then, let’s bring it down to a specific case. Are you paying attention to the shipyard plan for a marina? Could be many new real jobs. How is the public and political input coming down on that? BTW, remember the two fuel stations we didn’t get? Anti business rhetoric goes down (and knocks down) one opportunity at a time.
If unemployment nu.mbers are so bad, why is our governor being so unfair to us and keeping most businesses closed? After all, the infection rate here is minuscule!