For many low-skill workers, past not the future

We know that San Antonio’s leisure and hospitality workers, the ones with the fewest defenses against this historically devastating recession, have gotten the worst of it.

They made up 13 percent of the San Antonio metro area’s workforce as of March. Within a slightly larger territory — Bexar and 12 neighboring counties — hotel and foodservice workers accounted for 26 percent of the 167,000 unemployment claims filed between Feb. 24 and May 1.

Even in better times, they were generally poorly paid and had meager savings, and many of them lack the skills that would get them into better jobs. Their prospects were dim to begin with.

We also know that the businesses that employed them — hotels, restaurants, bars and others that exist to offer a good time to visitors and San Antonians with disposable income — will struggle to come back. Some will never reopen, others will limp along for weeks or months before calling it quits, and the rest will manage to survive.

Before the pandemic, the industry regularly clocked in as one of the region’s fastestgrowing. Which was always awkward for the civic cheerleaders who wanted to portray San Antonio as “a city on the rise.”

What we don’t know is who will be the major job creators when the recession ends.

But we have some clues — and they’re not encouraging for workers with few skills and not enough education.

For the time being, the San