February 6, 2025

lascala-agadir

Equality opinion

Local recession continues as firms look for COVID relief

St. Cloud State University

The St. Cloud area economy remains in recession as the uneven effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to plague the local labor market. While some local sectors are experiencing uninterrupted strong growth, the virus’ impact on the leisure/hospitality and other service sectors is creating historic existential challenges for some area firms. 

Overall local employment was 3.4{dcfa4b42334872b3517041d7075c48816e8f617446b245cec30e8949517ffd84} lower in October 2020 than it was one year earlier, but this is a clear improvement from what was seen in the June St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report (at which time we reported an 11.5{dcfa4b42334872b3517041d7075c48816e8f617446b245cec30e8949517ffd84} year-over-year decline in area employment). 

As was noted last quarter, published job losses in the Twin Cities (and across the state) remain considerably worse than what is seen locally. For example, Twin Cities employment declined 6.2{dcfa4b42334872b3517041d7075c48816e8f617446b245cec30e8949517ffd84} over the year ending October 2020 (and state employment also dropped 6.2{dcfa4b42334872b3517041d7075c48816e8f617446b245cec30e8949517ffd84} over the same period).