“The direction is clear,” Mr. Mulligan said in an email interview, “but more than the usual humility is required regarding magnitudes.”
It is difficult to know how workers would react to an extension, in part because employees make decisions with the long run in mind. They know more generous benefits will not last forever, so they may try to secure jobs now. Many enjoy their jobs and want to return. For others, the unemployment insurance improves the appeal of staying home, but is just one of several factors alongside limited child-care options as schools and camps remain closed and as health concerns persist.
The Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach area could reveal how those interactions will play out, because the resort town continues to have high demand for workers in parts of its service industry.
The area experiences a huge seasonal surge in consumer demand this time of year as beachgoers descend, stoking a need for bartenders, cooks, cleaners and other workers. The demand for workers has been exacerbated by the fact that the foreign students who usually come to America for seasonal jobs remain stuck at home amid the pandemic, leaving a hole in the usual summer labor force.
In much of the country, workers are plentiful given the nation’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate. So if one person wants to keep collecting unemployment rather than returning to work, that simply leaves a job open for another available applicant.
Because Rehoboth needs certain — often relatively low-paid — workers to make its tourist economy run, incentives that keep would-be employees on the sidelines could be damaging.
Rob Marshall, owner of the Atlantic Oceanside Dewey Beach Resort a few minutes down the road from Rehoboth, said the headache was real. He was having so much trouble hiring cleaners and the other workers necessary to service his 60-room hotel that he initially expected to spend most of June running at half capacity on the weekends.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/business/economy/unemployment-incentives-beach-town.html
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