AP- NORC poll: Many in no rush return to gym or dining out
Much of the country remains unlikely to venture out to bars, restaurants, theaters or gyms anytime soon, despite state and local officials across the country increasingly allowing businesses to reopen, according to a new survey by The Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That hesitancy in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak could muffle any recovery from what has been the sharpest and swiftest economic downturn in U. S. history. Just 42 percent of those who went to concerts, movies, theaters or sporting events at least monthly before the outbreak say they’d do so in the next few weeks if they could. Only about half of those who regularly went to restaurants, exercised at the gym or traveled would feel comfortable doing so again.
About a quarter of Americans say someone in their household has lost a job amid that downturn, and about half have lost household income, including layoffs, pay cuts, cut hours or unpaid time off. The majority of those whose household suffered a layoff still believe they will return to their previous employer, but the share expecting their job will not return has risen slightly over the past month, to 30 percent from 20 percent.
Amber Van Den Berge, a teacher in Indiana, held off on immediately returning to her second job as a fitness instructor. She would need to pass a test for COVID- 19, get her temperature checked each morning and lead class while wearing a protective mask.
“Wear a mask to teach a fitness class? I’m not ready for that,” said Van Den Berge, 39.
The speed and strength of any economic rebound could be thwarted because many fear the risk of new infections. Consumers make up roughly 70 percent of U. S. economic activity, so anything less than a total recovery in spending would force many companies to permanently close and deepen the financial pain for 39 million people who have lost jobs in roughly the past two months.
Forty- nine percent of Americans approve of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy, the poll shows. That has slipped over the last two months,
space in the long run? Maybe yes, maybe no. It will probably be offset by some tenants that ... split their operations for diversity, so I think the story still needs to be written. But clearly, the phenomenon of ‘ densification’ — that’s gone.”
Earlier this month, the CEO of office owner Mack- Cali noted that Citi elected to hang onto some 300,000 square feet of space in Jersey City that it had planned to sublease to other tenants.
“( Citi) said, ‘ Look, we may need this,’” said Mack Cali CEO Michael DeMarco. “Sometimes it’s going to be driven by the business unit head [ who] said, ‘ Hey ... going into New York isn’t going to work for us short term, maybe we can take a group out.’ And it’s three- to- seven- year deals.”
‘ That thought has probably gone away’
Two big factors working in favor of the suburbs are cheaper lease rates to allow companies to spread out desks, and a newfound wariness of trains and elevators as possible petri dishes
for the virus.
About six in 10 employers plan to let workers who use public transportation continue to work from home until they have complete assurance that trains and buses are safe from any coronavirus infection, according to a survey of more than 400 businesses nationally conducted during the second week of May by Norwalk- based OperationsInc.
Could contagion concerns go so far as to push corner offices out to the suburbs, with Manhattan offices becoming satellites for workers who choose to remain in the city or need access to Wall
Street or major airports?
Fagan said he has yet to see any evidence that the suburban spokes will become the hubs themselves — but predicts more companies will establish offices in Connecticut, if for lesser amounts of space initially as managers wait and see how worker attitudes evolve as vaccines and therapies reach the masses. Next door to the former Diageo building in Norwalk, FactSet has chosen to keep its new headquarters empty for the duration of 2020, with its staff of more than 900 working remotely until next January.
“Companies will ... give their
employees the ability to pick and choose how and where they want to work,” Fagan said. “The millennial generation is the largest workforce in our history so far ... and they are in their family formation prime — finally — that they have put off for a long time. I think that there was a notion, ‘ You know, maybe we just stay in New York.’ I think that thought has probably gone away, if I had to guess.”