At the current pace of recovery, it could take 2.4 years for employment in the nonprofit sector to return to pre-pandemic levels, an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies finds.
According to the BLS employment report for November, nonprofit employment was down 7 percent, or nearly eight hundred and seventy-eight thousand jobs, compared with February, with the largest declines in the arts, entertainment, and recreation (32.2 percent) and educational services (12.9 percent). And for the fourth consecutive month, the pace of job recovery across the sector remained slow, at 1.9 percent of the estimated 1.64 million initial job losses from March through May, with the education field seeing additional losses of more than four thousand jobs in November and over fifteen thousand in October.
If the current rate of recovery persists, the analysis notes, it would take the nonprofit sector another 2.4 years to regain its 2017 employment levels, with estimates by field ranging from 0.9 years for health care, to 1.4 years for arts, entertainment, and recreation, to two years for both educational services and social assistance, to 2.7 years for religious, grantmaking, and civic organizations.
“Given the dramatic recent surges in new COVID-19 infections and deaths, the increasing restrictions being instituted around the country in an attempt to stem the tide, the looming expiration of existing policy interventions, and the likelihood that vaccinations will not be available to the majority of the population until at least the second quarter of 2021, it seems likely that the recent slowing of nonprofit job recovery will persist, or perhaps even intensify in the coming months,” the authors write. “Luckily, the nonprofit sector has a constellation of strong advocates working to ensure that these critical organizations are included in the next rounds of support legislation when and if they arrive. The ability of the country to recover from its current crisis may well depend on it.”
Source:PND
