YORK COUNTY, Pa. — A study conducted on York County concludes that up to 30% of its businesses could fail in the aftermath of COVID-19.
"It’s foreboding - make no mistake," said Kevin Schreiber, CEO of the York County Economic Alliance or YCEA. "I mean, this is absolutely a crisis. There is no sugar coating it."
Schreiber is talking about the latest data from Pittsburgh-based consultant Fourth Economy and its latest report on York County's economy. The YCEA engaged Fourth Economy to develop a countywide action plan for 2020, but then the coronavirus hit, and they decided to switch gears to better understand how the virus could potentially impact the county.
"You know, we could see as great as 20 to 30% business failure across the board in York County," explained Schreiber.
That means some of the closed signs on doors could stay that way forever.
"Hospitality, retail, and restaurants have been really on the front lines as of being really directly impacted earliest and probably most significantly through the crisis," added Schreiber.
Schreiber tells us part of the problem is a majority of businesses did not receive help from the Payroll Protection Program or PPP. According to the Small Business Administration, it’s a loan designed to help businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis.
"At least in York County, we can estimate that nearly 70% of our small business community did not have access to PPP," explained Schreiber.
The 66-page document sent to us by Schreiber features graphs and a lot of numbers. It talks about how many businesses have been affected because of the state's closure order as well as how many of their employees are feeling the impact of COVID-19.
"Some of the key takeaways of the data are that the CARES Act bought us time but not enough because there were too many businesses who didn't have access to some of the programs, and there are some finite dates here coming up in the future where they're critical moments for a big portions of our population," added Schreiber.
The report may cause worries, but Schreiber says the data also points to positive news.
"We will recover, and we have had companies that are actually hiring people," he said. "We do have a very diverse economy spread across manufacturing, construction, healthcare, hospitality, and retail so the fact that we are not incredibly dependent solely on one industry sector makes York County a little bit more resilient than maybe other areas."
You can find the latest COVID-19 information and how the coronavirus is impacting York County on PreparedYork.Com.