Southwest Michigan is holding its own economically during the COVID-19 pandemic, but officials at Kinexus say there are some trouble spots that are growing. Vice president of public relations and government affairs Al Pscholka says a big concern is the number of people looking for work.
“From December to December, so that takes in all of the pandemic, we’ve lost 6,000 in our labor force,” says Pscholka. “Forty-two hundred of those were just in December.”
Chief operating officer Jake Gustafson says the unemployment rate for Berrien, Cass and Van Buren counties is up a half-percent to 5.2%.
“Largely due probably to the reduced measures and lockdowns on hospitality and leisure,” says Gustafson. “We saw the latest round of restrictions go in in November, and that’s almost instantaneously affected some of our hospitality and leisure folks and they’ve had to exit the workforce and become part of the unemployment.”
Manufacturing and construction have continued to hold on, but healthcare, leisure and hospitality, and agribusiness are all starting to struggle.
