As authorities find themselves in a race against the clock to implement the most effective measures against the spread of COVID-19, CommercialCafé, a nationwide commercial real estate listings platform, ran a hypothetical simulation to gauge what the NY PAUSE strategy — which mandated that all nonessential businesses must reduce their on-site workforce by 100 percent — would mean to workforce distribution across other U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).
Here are some of the results:
- In the Madison metro area, an estimated 52.60 percent of employees would have to stay at or work from home, while essential business and services personnel would make up the remaining 47.40 percent.
- Out of the 196,010 employees estimated as nonessential workforce in Madison, Office and administrative support occupations would make up the largest category, followed by business and financial operations, and education, training, and library occupations.
- On a national level, an estimated 48.7 percent of employees would have to stay at or work from home, while essential business and services personnel would account for the remaining 51.3 percent.
To arrive at its findings, CommercialCafé looked at 2018 BLS employment totals and occupations data for U.S. metros with at least 300,000 employees. For the selection of occupations to include under “exempt essentials,” CommercialCafé matched the BLS data with businesses and services considered essential and exempt as per revised Executive Order 202.6, which took effect at 8 p.m. on March 22.
