The high level of unemployment in Florida caused by the pandemic forced many business owners to reinvent themselves to survive, many perished and others took advantage of the opportunity and the gaps created by the economic crises.
The great recession created in 2008 by the real estate bubble in 2006 in the US affected tens of thousands of small, medium and large companies, but already in mid-2010 many of them recovered and while some disappeared others were created . This cycle occurs in every crisis.
After the previous crisis, Uber was born along with thousands of technology companies, other large companies merged such as the Lan (Chilean) and Tam (Brazilian) airlines, giving rise to the current Latam. Added to the list are Google that acquired Nest, Walmart bought Jet.com for its new internet services; Microsoft, in addition to aQuantive, acquired Nokia and thus an extensive portfolio.
The pandemic
Despite the fact that the global economic crisis generated by SARS-COVID 2 or COVID-19 has been the worst in the last 100 years, it will also experience the same graph as the previous ones, some companies die and others are born.
Almost two million jobs were lost in the first three months of the virus in Florida (March, April and May), more than half recovered, but thousands of small businesses linked to tourism, closed forever.
However, what seemed at first a dead end hell, became light for many in the so-called Sunshine State.
In August, the Hospitality and Leisure sector, the most affected, recovered 278,500 jobs, 50.6% of the job losses.
Business and professional services recovered 73,200 jobs, 48.5% of the jobs lost during the pandemic, while health and education services rescued 72.9%. All of the above figures grew much more in the positive territory between September and October, when the unemployment level fell below 8%.
If the above figures are encouraging and confirm the beginning of the economic recovery, the following is much better:
Opportunities
Between July and September, 1.6 million companies were created in the US, a quarterly record.
Interest rates for loans are now very low, as are rental prices for premises. There is less competition for startup capital and than ever before, there is the appeal of creating what people need.
The number of business tax ID applications was down more than a third at the end of March compared to 2019. In the week ending October 3, they were up 40% compared to the same week the previous year.
Florida, which lives off tourism, is among the states with the highest rates of new businesses compared to months ago when it was on the list of the most devastated by the pandemic and with unemployment figures above the national record of 14.7 %.
Businesses like Lagecy Fit weren't driven by the trend for virtual exercise classes. They pitched big open tents in Fort Lauderdale and Pembroke Pines and the result was amazing.
Due to sanitation, dozens of companies were born in South Florida that invested millions of dollars in high-tech equipment to clean buildings, apartments, condominiums and hotels, a need that expanded with the pandemic and the regulations of state governments and counties to stop the advance of the virus.
Others changed their usual productions and began to manufacture face shields and hand sanitizers.
Hialeah plastics manufacturing and distribution company Faulkner Plastic was one of the examples of firms in the south of the state that re-adapted their production to meet the demands of medical supplies and kept their 50 employees in three shifts for 24 hours.
Economic rebound
The United States registered a spectacular rebound in the third quarter with record GDP growth of 33.1% in annual projection, still far from marking the end of the crisis.
In the second quarter, the drop in GDP was 31.4%, but the latest statistics indicate that the economy has started to recover steadily.
For the second week in a row, jobless claims fell to 751,000 claims, another indicator that while layoffs continue, the situation is also approaching stability.
In August, Miami Dade College received $ 3 million in federal funding for the Hotel Worker Relief Scholarship Program, and grant slots were allocated to hotels across the county based on size.
The county also allocated 5 million from the CARES Act for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau to launch a promotional campaign for the return of tourism to South Florida.
Some businesses in Miami also took advantage of falling revenues and restrictions to expand their service capacity, such as Sergio's restaurant on Coral Way and Southwest 31 Avenue, while in the Allapatah area progress was made in the completion of a shopping center in 10 floors facing the Miami River called River Landing and with a modernist design that will awaken more investment in the area and new businesses.
The migration of capital from other states in the country where tax rates on businesses and wealthy people have increased has also favored the recovery in Florida at this time, where tourism is still weighed down by new outbreaks of infections in Europe, Asia and America Latin.
Miami, one of the most visited cities in the world, has suffered like others the consequences of the pandemic in the health and economic sectors, but the recovery has already begun despite the continuing pandemic.
Fuente: https://www.diariolasamericas.com/eeuu/las-crisis-tambien-reviven-las-economias-n4209570
