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Coronavirus Puts Nearly Half Of LA Workers At Risk Of Losing Their Jobs
A fast food worker cleans up in San Gabriel. (Josie Huang/LAist)
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More than two million Californians have already filed for unemployment in the wake of coronavirus-related business closures. That’s one out of every eight workers in the state.
But a new study finds things could get much worse as the crisis drags on.
Researchers with the Economic Roundtable, an L.A. nonprofit, find that 43% of California workers are at high risk of unemployment. They came up with that number based on risk factors like:
- Not being able to work from home
- Being paid hourly
- Working in a field deemed non-essential
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Economic Roundtable President and study co-author Daniel Flaming said the risk in L.A. County is even higher, with 47% of workers here in danger of losing their jobs.
“We are less affluent than the San Francisco Bay Area and have a higher concentration of low-paid service jobs,” Flaming said. “That leads to a higher level of risk.”
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