“A lot of restaurant operators are saying, ‘Lemme just get to April.’ It’s going to be warmer outside, windows open, people wanting to go out. So there is some hope.”
As of October, the region’s restaurants employed about 57,000 workers, a sharp drop from the more than 88,000 working in those establishments a year ago, according to an analysis by regional economist Chris Briem at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research.
The unemployment rate fell only because of a big drop in the state’s civilian labor force, and the state has yet to recover many of the jobs lost to the economic impact of the coronavirus.
Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 8.1% in September, down 2.3 percentage points from August’s adjusted rate of 10.4%, the state Department of Labor and Industry said.
“Susu” is a kind of informal loan club popular in Philadelphia’s African business community. The concept is practiced worldwide under a variety of names.
The audit, which is ongoing, has uncovered significant problems that created an uneven playing field for businesses across Pennsylvania, state Auditor Eugene DePasquale said.
One-quarter of businesses in the commonwealth have cut workers since the start of the pandemic and nearly one-third reduced the number of hours employees worked.
