The double edge sword that is unemployment

By Savio M

According to a San Jose Spotlight article written by Madelyn RoseIn March 2020, amidst the pandemic, approximately 680,000 residents in California filed for unemployment.

The rate of unemployment is fluctuating and peaking more than ever in Santa Clara county. In January of 2011 was the highest unemployment rate in recent history being 10.4 percent with 99,092 people being unemployed. After that year the rate of unemployment began to drop slowly averaging out until it hit around the 2-5% zone.

However, as of March of 2020, there was a 3.1% unemployment rate in the Santa Clara County area, approximately 33,697 people at the time. Then a major increase in the following months occurred. In April there was a 9.3% increase with a whopping 128,668 people being unemployed. That's 94,971 people unemployed in one month just like that. This was all during the lockdown that spanned from march to summer of 2021. During the global pandemic many suffered and stumbled to stay afloat. However, thanks to the government, many were saved from the judgment of eviction and the struggle to put food on the table as they proceeded to give extra money and prevented those who couldn't afford rent from being evicted. One thing the government did was forbade owners from evicting those who could not afford rent. Another thing they did was giving out checks to those eligible for it for varying amounts known as “stimulus checks”.

Though on the contrary, there were many things that were also very negative that came from this whole experience. According to Nick Kaspar, the Chief of staff from District 7 at the Santa Clara County's mayor's office, “Unemployment creates financial distress, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and much more.” In an interview aired on KRON 4 News, Hayward resident Andrew Olivarez talked about his experience during the pandemic and the issues that came about with it. It took 3 months for him to even start getting benefits. He then said, “It went on hold again saying that there was a security error on the EDD page and I would get locked out of my account just trying to sign in.” He expressed his overall feelings by saying, “I was a chicken with its head cut off.”

For the renters and buyers of our community there was a big hit to the bank. According to Nick Kaspar, “As of late-2020, Santa Clara County had over 22,000 households owe a combined ~$73M in back rent.” He also talked about an eviction moratorium, which is a national order that prevents people from getting evicted and would prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Nick Kaspar then said, “With the Eviction Moratorium just ending, we will likely see the negative impacts of this throughout the next several months and government agencies are taking steps to mitigate these impacts” Those who rent their houses and are involved in real estate took a major hit due to covid. The government is trying their best to negate these negative effects that come along with the following stages of the pandemic.

Now let's talk about demographics. According to santa clara county's mayor's office there are certain professions that were hit harder due to the viruses rampage“ For example, the hospitality industry saw a steep decline in employment at the start of the pandemic and has slowly increased employment since April 2020 but is still about 30% below the pre-pandemic employment rate.” There were many healthcare workers who left their jobs due to various reasons whether it was for safety, sickness, and family issues.

Though, there was also a racial side of the demographic. Again according to Nick Kaspar “Unemployment has hit the Latino and Black communities harder, which have an unemployment rate of 10.3% and 10.6%, respectively, as compared to a State average of 8.6% in Q1 2021.” The population of Santa Clara county as of April was 1,936,259 according to census.gov. Approximately 25 percent of the population is Hispanic while 2.8 percent is African American with a combined 27.8 percent, more than a ¼ of our population. And they both have higher unemployment rates than our whole state average.

However I would like to end on a good note as we are in the process of returning to normal life again as just about everything is opened back up again and more people are vaccinated than ever. The mayor's office stated that “unemployment has been trending downward since the beginning of the pandemic, but it has not reached the record low unemployment rate from just prior to the pandemic. As for their immediate plan they plan to help local businesses by providing help with training expenses and expanding outdoor venues. Thankfully we are recovering on a steady pace and there is help available for our local business owners.

As for the long term goals, “we must invest in job retraining programs for people with jobs that will be forever changed due to the pandemic. Also, we must promote businesses that offer jobs that can be made into a career.” They proceed to talk about how they are ready for the future and are ready for the next challenge that awaits them and our community.

Right now we are on the right path. We are at a steady 5.0% unemployment rate and are slowly getting better. We must be patient and let things play out until we return to complete normal life. If there is anything that should be taken from this it is that This goes to show that as a community we can accomplish many things. We just have to do it together as we are never ever alone.

Special thanks to the office of Maya Esparza and their representatives.