One of the industries most obviously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is travel. That includes modes of travel and the resorts and destination entertainment travel creates in our economy. The Washington Post reports that more than 35,000 airline workers are set to be laid off by Thursday. The industry has reportedly been handling only a third of its normal level of passengers during the pandemic. Meanwhile, CNBC reports that Disney theme parks and resorts are planning on laying off 28,000 U.S. employees.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that 6,700 of those layoffs will be taking place in Orlando at Walt Disney World, starting Dec. 4. Disney, as with the airline industry, have attempted at reopening, but to considerably lower numbers than they had hoped, but were easily predicted. Easily predicted because of how poorly our country’s management of the pandemic has been.
It is hard to feel sympathy for the management class of the airline industry who spent almost all of their bailout and tax break money over the last decade on stock buybacks. Instead of creating a more robust business model and building up their own reserves, they lined their pockets with taxpayer money. But, if our country had more uniformly began enacting public health measures to stop the spread, and our federal government under Trump had taken things more seriously and gotten testing and tracking up to speed, we would have a contained public health crisis that could be managed.
The number of unemployed would be considerably down, the number of small businesses out of business would be down. These things would not stop the fundamental problems of wage stagnation and income inequality that have fed an economy that sacrifices the many for the pleasure of the few, but we would not be standing over the chasm we now face.