Across Alabama, because of closure orders issued to counter the growing threat of the coronavirus, the retail hearts of cities and towns have been on life support. In the Birmingham area, the 18th Street shopping district in Homewood was a prime example.

But on a bright blue Friday morning, you could detect a heartbeat in Homewood, one that retailers hope will get stronger in the weeks and months to come.

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, the closure orders were lifted in large part for many retail businesses. Those orders had been part of a state-issued Stay-at-Home directive. A new directive, Safer at Home, is now in place and will be until May 15. As a result, shops that sell clothing, home furnishings, gifts and other items in downtown Homewood opened their doors Friday to walk-in traffic for the first time since late March, or even earlier. And while the walk-in traffic was not overwhelming, it was steady – and encouraging.

“All things considered, it’s been a great day,” said Beth Staula, one of the owners of Alabama Goods.

“Some people are still a little bit intimidated and they’re probably still at home hunkered down and less likely to go out shopping,” Staula said near the end of a 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. business day. “But for the people who are less intimidated, they don’t seem to be too worried about it and … everyone seems to be glad to start seeing some normalcy back in their lives.” Read more.

Alabamians filed 331,670 unemployment claims in a four-week period that began in mid-March, the Alabama Department of Labor said Thursday.

During the week of April 12-18, 66,432 initial unemployment claims were made, with 59,527 of those related to loss of work because of the coronavirus, according to ADOL.

Manufacturing jobs accounted for 9,770 of those claims, followed by accommodations and food services with 6,685 and retail trade with 5,540. Health care and social assistance accounted for 5,367 of the claims.
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Many currently shuttered businesses in Alabama could reopen over the next few weeks under new recommendations from a task force created by Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth.

Some establishments such as restaurants, hair salons, child care centers and small retail stores would open immediately under the plan, while others such as medical services, casinos, gyms and entertainment venues would need to wait until May 1. The state’s beaches would also open May 1 and youth sports could resume starting May 11, under the plan from the Small Business Emergency Task Force, which was formed by Ainsworth earlier this month.

The recommendations have been sent to Gov. Kay Ivey, who said she would take them into consideration when formulating next steps in Alabama’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The state remains under a stay-at-home order limiting residents to only essential errands until April 30. Read more.

Related:

Is Stay-in-Place Currently A Wise Policy For Alabama? The Harvard Club of Birmingham Debates.

Now that Alabamians are eating at home more due to the coronavirus and the resulting stay-at-home orders, state farmers are having to shift how they package and process food.

“Restaurants — they buy big packages,” Jimmy Parnell, president of the Alabama Farmers Federation, said. “Most of us, for our family, want a family-sized package. So that has changed the demand significantly. When you’re selling a pound or two at a time versus 100 pounds at a time, it changes that flow of things.”
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The COVID-19 pandemic has many people wondering about their economic future and the safety of their money. Banks report experiencing more cash withdrawals in the last few weeks. In fact, demand was so high at one Manhattan bank that it temporarily ran out of $100 bills.  Experts say hoarding cash can be risky, both financially and to your health.  Scott Latham is President and CEO of the Alabama Bankers Association. He says banks across the state have been preparing for a crisis of this magnitude for years with help from the Alabama Recovery Coalition. Read more.

You don’t have to get infected by the coronavirus to see it have a painful impact on your life, as many workers – or former workers – have discovered.
Christine Prichard, a freelance photographer based in Birmingham, has seen the impact of COVID 19 in a couple of ways. First, her teenage son is in the Dominican Republic and she’s eager to get him back home, even though that would mean two weeks of quarantine with him.

But like many others, Prichard is seeing her business affected by the pandemic, as well.

She frequently shoots photos of corporate events, and late last month, at an annual celebratory event for a trade group, she saw an early sign that the pandemic was going to have an economic downside for her work.

“It was their annual meeting to kind of celebrate their sales. And at that meeting every year they would announce where they would book their annual trip for the top sales people of this product. And there was a guy that had to announce that they were not going to book the trip, pending what’s going on with coronavirus,” she recalled. “He said, ‘It’s just too iffy. We don’t want to lose deposits. We’re being super-careful.’”

That, Prichard said, was “kind of the first little wind I got that, ‘Oh. This could really be an issue.’” Since then, she said, “I haven’t done an event in a couple of weeks.”

From gig workers, to teachers to even health care workers and others, many are finding that the pandemic has reached into their pockets.

The pandemic has economic forecasters talking about recession in the wake of massive jobs losses. The headlines are about plants closing, unemployment claims rising, the government working on details of stimulus relief to American workers – and failing to come to terms. An NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll said that by last Wednesday, “nearly 20% of U.S. households have experienced either a layoff or a reduction in work hours because of the coronavirus.”

Unemployment filings are rising significantly. Preliminary Alabama Department of Labor numbers show that more than 17,000 people filed for unemployment on Sunday and Monday, the Associated Press reported. In the week that ended March 13, that number was 1,434. Read more.

Facing canceled events, closed venues, mounting revenue losses and growing layoffs, Alabama’s tourism and travel industry is digging in for what could become an extended battle with the coronavirus pandemic.

As in every segment of global society, the state’s hospitality industry is struggling with the uncertainties of how severely and how long the crisis will affect everyday life.

The stakes are obvious in a state that depends on the travel and tourism for 7.3 percent of its gross domestic product. The industry brought $15.5 billion to Alabama in 2018 and created an estimated 198,891 direct jobs, according to the Alabama Tourism Department’s latest annual report. Taxes paid by tourists saved each Alabama family $507. Read more.

Major Events Affected by Coronavirus.