With the pandemic and natural disasters taking an economic toll, it’d be an understatement to say 2020 wasn’t a boom time for most business owners. As the holiday retail season gets underway, hopes still run high in Lane County for the rest of the year.
At the recent annual economic summit presented by the Eugene Chamber of Commerce and Oregon Community Credit Union, managers spoke of layoffs, depressed profits, and postponing expansions.
Lane County Workforce Analyst Henry Fields explained how many events in 2020 hurt businesses, including Oregon’s summer wildfires.
“When you look at the height of the fires, there were nearly a quarter million workers in Evacuation Zones 1-3. That’s 21,000 businesses," Fields told the audience via Zoom.
"That’s a tremendous impact and it doesn’t include things like disruption of work through smoke.”
Fields added that while 2020’s economic blowout is comparable to the 2008 Recession, jobs recovery has happened far quicker. The continued fortunes for area businesses will rely heavily on people buying and supporting local.
Many business owners during the summit shared guarded optimism that normalcy would return, allowing them to act on many plans postponed by both the pandemic and the wildfires.
Copyright 2020, KLCC.
