The Congressional Budget Office's updated economic projections for 2020 and 2021 revealed just how brutal the coronavirus pandemic has been for the leisure and hospital sector.
The CBO estimates the industry lost 48.3 percent of its jobs, or 8.6 million total, in March and April.
Looking toward the future, the latest projections are far from rosy, and leisure and hospitality isn't the only sector of the U.S. economy that will deal with the fallout. Real GDP is expected to shrink by 11.2 percent in the second quarter of 2020, before growing by 5 percent in the third. The CBO pegged unemployment to peak at 15.8 percent in the 2020's third quarter before gradually dropping until it settles at 8.6 percent by the end of 2021.
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There's clearly no good news in those numbers, but it is actually a slight improvement from the CBO's April projections. Tim O'Donnell
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