Numbers from China, South Korea, Japan and Washington state are being used to model the economic change West Michigan will likely experience from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Industries at highest risk and that will be hit the hardest are arts & entertainment, recreation, accommodation, food services and transportation.
“We’re expecting very deep hits on those sectors and that will last for more than a few weeks.”
Paul Isely is associate dean in the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University. He says those sectors make up about 5-percent of the local economy. Still, a painful situation for workers in those fields.
“We’re looking for $1.2 to $2 billion taken out of the West Michigan economy. Overall in the West Michigan economy, we’re a little over $61 billion for a year. So, this is going to happen for a very short period of time. It’s going to be very painful in that month to two-month range. But most of the modelers are right now showing a pretty strong return as we hit the second half of the year.”
However, before we get there, Isely is certain the economy will experience a shallow recession.
I’m Patrick Center