It’s business as virtual in Rock Hill. Coronavirus impacts thousands of SC companies.
It’s far from business as usual with COVID-19 social distancing measures in place. The challenge is to keep businesses going, which can take a little creativity.
The Rock Hill Economic Development Corporation held a virtual meeting Tuesday to talk major ongoing projects like downtown redevelopment, large employer recruitment, and entrepreneurship training. Momentum on months-long efforts continue, but coronavirus limits how the next wave of city economic growth may arrive.
“Nobody is traveling, so we don’t have anyone visiting our sites,” said Rick Norwood, updating the corporation on industrial site recruitment.
There are thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment tied into active projects from spec buildings to industrial to manufacturing. Construction continues on pace, Norwood said, for previously announced projects.
“There will be a change in the way we show industrial properties,” he said.
The city and York County will partner with the state commerce department on a grant program for virtual tour videos of industrial parks. The city and county soon could have half a dozen virtual tours for projects like Legacy Park East, Aspen and University Center.
Drone piloting and marketing companies could help give prospective investors a feel for the area, demographic and workforce information, an idea of the business parks in relation to ports and rail lines, incentive information and more details without those investors actually coming here.
The virtual tours are one effort, Norwood said, as corporation leaders remain in contact with existing Rock Hill businesses.
“The information we’re getting is pretty consistent,” he said. “There’s been workforce reduction anywhere from 20 to 30% or more. Companies that were operating two or three shifts are down.”
It isn’t just Rock Hill.
On Tuesday the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce released a business survey it ran statewide from April 23 to May 3. The survey generated almost 4,500 business responses from varied sectors and sizes. Almost 70% of responses came from small businesses.
“The results of this survey clearly show that our businesses are hurting and need for us to take quick action to get them back on track,” chamber president and CEO Tedd Pitts said in a statement. “Gov. McMaster lifting the Home-or-Work Order will go a long way toward helping them get back up to operational status, but we must continue to keep the focus on reopening the economy safely for our businesses and employees.”
According to the chamber, the survey found more than 40% of businesses have had to lay off or furlough employees. Of those responses, 90% laid off or furloughed employees with intent to bring at least half of them back within three months. Two of every five businesses implemented or are considering pay cuts for employees, while 30% are completely unable to conduct business during a stay at home or home or work order.
The biggest challenges for businesses, according to the survey, are lack of demand for services and the ability to cover payroll.
David Warner, director of the Technology Incubator at Knowledge Park, sees the impact.
“COVID-19 has slammed small businesses pretty hard,” he told the corporation Tuesday.
Still, there are opportunities. Warner spoke of one area company in line to perform COVID-19 antibody testing for the area. Another, he said, transitioned its normal operations to create high fashion facemasks as a national shortage of protective equipment hit.
Warner’s group transitioned an upcoming entreprenuership conference to an online format. Other corporation efforts from mentoring programs to networking events also are going online.
More than half the responses to the state chamber survey came from businesses operating 15 years or more. About 48% responded they’ve been able at least partially deliver services and products using alternative means. Almost 24% responded they have completely migrated sales or services to alternative approaches.
More than half responded they would need all state orders that limit public gathering to be lifted before they could bring back employees and services in full.
Coronavirus brought massive spikes in unemployment since social distancing measures hit mid-March. The week ending April 25 was the second straight with declining in-state unemployment claims. Still, figures for that week were many times what they were pre-coronavirus.
“While this apparent trend is good news, the fact remains that we have a record number of unemployed people,” state department of employment and workforce executive director Dan Ellzey said. “We want everyone to know that we are doing everything we can to simplify the system and help people successfully navigate the claims process.”
Just among people who live and work in South Carolina, the tri-county area has almost 22,000 unemployment claims since mid-March. York County has 14,711 claims compared to 4,568 claims in Lancaster County and 2,332 claims in Chester County.
This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 3:07 PM.
