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As the the pandemic wanes and our lives normalize, at least in Texas, we are returning to our regular tasks. We will no longer post Covid-related studies on this portal. Still we plan to continue updating our dashboard on local recovery through the remainder of the year. We appreciate your support of our work.

Updated: 7/14/2021

The Impact of COVID-19 on Local Tourism

COVID-19 has led to substantially higher unemployment in the hospitality sector than the rest of the regional economy since April 2020. Corpus Christi lost an estimate of 1,066 jobs and $30 million in wage earnings directly associated with reduced visitor spending in the area. Given the exposure of most local industries to tourism activities, the metro area lost an estimated total of 1,448 jobs and $520 million in business due to fewer out-of-town visitors to the region in 2020. Read the article online.  

COVID-19 Dashboard: Impact and Recovery

The pandemic has not ended yet. But Corpus Christi is transitioning to a so-called YOLO (You Only Live Once) economy, which may well be a new normal. This dashbboard consists of two sections: The first section shows estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on the economy by the end of March 2021, one year after the statewide lockdown mandate. The second section is a monthly update on key drivers of the area's economic recovery. Check back often to stay ahead! View the dashboard infographics.  

COVID-19 Survey Ahead of New Normal

According to the survey responses, most businesses have reopened. Besides an uncertain economic outlook, businesses' top challenges currently are supply chain disruptions and staff recruitment. The majority of respondents valued the financial assistance from federal grants and loans, but many also attributed the new unemployment benefits to their hiring challenges. Read the Coastal Bend report online | PDF version | Report for Victoria

Media Coverage: KIII, 4/16 | Caller-Times, 4/17 | KHOU (Houston) | Caller-Times, 5/20 |

 

COVID-19 and Mobility Waves

Soon after the state rescinded its business capacity restrictions in March, foot traffic at most businesses returned to their pre-pandemic levels. Despite improvement in residents' overall mobility, they have continued to spend about 20% more time at home. Work from home and online learning now account for most of the extra time people spend at home. Read the article online.  

Lodging Industry Rebound as Driver for Local Recovery

The hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Except those downtown convention and conference hotels, motels in Corpus Christi have fared relatively better than those in other cities. The area's beaches and coastal environment will likely continue to attract visitors in the face of the pandemic. Read the article online.  

New Business Boom in the COVID-19 Economy

The U.S. economy stands alone in creating the most business startups amid the pandemic. By helping transform the post-COVID economy, these new businesses are poised to raise employment and productivity growth in the long run. Read the article online  

Texas COVID Business Recovery Survey

According to a recently conducted survey conducted in communities across Texas, most businesses have slowly returned to the pre-pandemic conditions. They are now adapting to today's economic realities, which include more employees working from home, a protracted recovery along with an elevated public health risk. Read online | PDF version.

Media Coverage: Community Impact Newspaper, 9/27 |

 

Tracking the COVID-19 Economy

Today, Corpus Christi residents on average spend about 10% more time at home than at the beginning of the year. More than one-third of residents work mostly at home. As a result of reduced foot traffic for local businesses, the area's employment level remained 10% lower. Read online.  

COVID-19: Lives or Livelihoods

Using a popular epidemiology model, we make projections for the numbers of COVID-19 infections under different hypothetical scenarios. Model predictions help us better understand the current policy dilemma between public health and reviving the regional economy. Drawing on available labor market data during the ongoing pandemic, we find the cost of shutting down businesses in terms lost wage earnings for each infection or death avoided to be at least twice as much for the local area as for Texas as a whole. Read online | PDF version.  

COVID-19 Business Recovery Progress Report (June 2020)

This progress report summarizes the survey and real-time data that we have collected for local businesses in the past three months. The analyses of data by industry help us better understand the pandemic's impacts and the prospect of our economy on the road to full recovery. Download the PDF file.  

COVID-19 Business Recovery Survey (June 2020)

This is the third of the COVID-19 survey series for communities in South Texas. This survey focuses on business needs in the post-COVID-19 era in the wake of a record level of unemployment across the region. Read online | Download the PDF file.

Media Coverage: Caller Times, June 2 | June 9 || KIIITV June 9 || Victoria Advocate June 9  

COVID-19 Timeline

With hindsight, this chronological narrative aims at helping decison makers, community leaders and government officials alike to recast visions for the future in a new world economic order. The timeline supplements the dashboard and it is updated weekly.  

Record Unemployment

Corpus Christi's unemployment rate surged to a record level of 15.8% in April. Unlike the rest of Texas, the area faces a double whammy as a result of its exposure to the hospitality and energy sectors, both of which have been hit hardest during the COVID-19 pandemic. As social distancing has begun to wind down, businesses are gradually returning to a new normal. Locally, however, high unemployment may be here to stay as long as oil prices remain at depressed levels. Read this article.

Media Coverage: New York Times, June 6.

 

COVID-19: Early Weeks of Recovery

We look at GIS-based real-time data that offer insights into the impact of stay-at-home orders on businesses and the economy. Governments' lockdown orders alone did not shut down the economy, and some businesses did not reopen immediately after those orders expired. The local economy has been reopening gradually since Easter, and recovery will likely take the shape of a Nike swoosh instead of a V-shaped rebound. Read this article.  

COVID-19: Impact & Recovery Dashboard

This is a dashboard with various data sources to track the impact and recovery across different industries in Texas on a daily basis. Check back frequently by entering tinyrul.com/reboundTX.  

COVID-19: Nature is Calling

Here we reflect on changes in the environment before we will soon return to business as usual. The past month offered a good lesson on sustainable development. Read on ...  

COVID-19: Altering Policy Tradeoffs

The focus of this article is policy that may potentially alter the usual tradeoffs between actions to combat the coronavirus outbreak and damage to the economy. Those policy strategies and lessons around the world are not conventional monetary and fiscal policies aimed to stabilize the economy, but some of them can be adopted by policymakers to reopen businesses without substantially raising the public health risk. Read on ...  

COVID-19 Business Surveys Supplementary Report

This report presents some findings from the South Texas COVID-19 Task Force surveys conducted in March and April. With a focus on COVID-19-related policy measures' impacts by industry and location, those observations supplement the area-wide observations in the two surveys' summary reports. Read on ...  

COVID-19 Business Impact Survey II Report

This survey provides a snapshot of the hardship facing South Texas despite the government relief programs aimed to mitigate the economic damage to businesses and their employees. More than one third of local businesses in the Coastal Bend and Golden Crescent regions are closed. Open businesses are operating at 65% capacity on average, compared to about 80% two weeks earlier. Small businesses are bearing the brunt of the impact. Read on ...

Media Coverage: Caller Times, April 24 | Victoria Advocate, April 20

 

COVID-19: Geographic and Demographic Differences in Economic Pain

Current policy actions to slow the spread of COVID-19 disproportionately affect the economy of Corpus Christi. Compared with a typical U.S. city, social distancing affects relatively more businesses and employees in the area with a sizable hospitality sector. A stay-at-home order affects the livelihoods of relatively more of the area workforce that cannot work remotely. As a result, the public health crisis has led to social injustice locally as the Hispanic population and the working poor suffer more economic injury than others do. Read on ...  

COVID-19: Outbreak and Impact

This article addresses two questions. The first question concerns the origin of the virus outbreak during its early days, highlighting the downsides of a top-down, command-and-control political system and recent global trends. The second question concerns COVID-19's local economic impacts that also depend on the extent of resilience in the community.

Read on ... Media Coverage: Caller Times, April 8.

 

COVID-19 Business Surveys Supplementary Report

This is the same COVID-19 Business Impact Survey report customized for the Golden Crescent region. Read on ...

Media Coverage: Victoria Advocate, April 2

 

COVID-19 Business Impact Survey report

This is the first of a series of surveys to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on local businesses. In this round, 846 responses have been recorded as of April 2, 2020. The report focuses on results of 388 complete responses. Read on ...

Media Coverage: Caller Times, March 31.

 

Real-Time Infographics on COVID-19 Cases

The Conrad Blucher Institute provides up-to-date mapping data on COVID-19 cases. The City of Corpus Christi also has a real-time GIS-based portal. A national view of cases by county is available on Tableau Public  

COVID-19 Site Launched!

The STEDC deploys this COVID-19 portal in April 2020 to provide data and analytics to assist public officials and policymakers in making informed policy decisions and to faciliate a speedy recovery from the crisis.

 
STEDC
Local Focus. Global Perspective.

South Texas Economic Development Center
College of Business
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi