Report: Business Impacts Will Linger Long After COVID-19 Pandemic Has Ended
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- As businesses start to reopen with the easing, there's a grim report about when and if they will be able to recover from losses they suffered during the pandemic.
At Fieldwork Brewing in Berkeley, they've been able to stay fairly successful through their curbside pick service and beer delivery business.
Still, they are not fully staffed to pre-pandemic levels.
"It's unprecedented," said Barry Braden, the company's owner. "It's nothing that we ever expected we would be faced with as small business people but it's what we have."
Fieldwork Brewing has 7 locations in Northern California. It initially furloughed 70 percent of its staff but with a robust shipping and curbside takeout business, Fieldwork is back to 60 percent of its pre-pandemic staffing levels.
Unlike other businesses, the brewer plans on bringing many of the furloughed employees back.
"We're going to over staff initially," Braden told KPIX 5. "We have to make sure we're taking care of sanitation and cleanliness piece. We have to make sure that we can deliver to homes."
But according to a survey of 123 businesses by the Bay Area Council, the transition back to normal will be a slow process. Most companies estimate it will take at least a year for revenue to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Of those, 10 percent say it could take 2 years.
"People need to work to live so its very threatening to conceive it could take years for businesses to make a comeback," said Jim Wunderman, the Chief Executive Officer of the Bay Area Council.
The comeback could hinge on when businesses can fully reopen. A whopping 70 percent fear it won't happen until stage 4 of the Gov. Gavin Newsom's reopening plan.
"The belief in the community is that it's going to take a long time to come back longer than we think is viable to operate an effective economy that serves the economy and the workforce," said Wunderman.
While businesses like Fieldwork need many of their employees on site, 89 percent of companies will have partial remote work policies.
