MA Coronavirus: More Than 17,000 Hotel Jobs Already Lost

BOSTON, MA — Massachusetts hotels have already cut 17,847 jobs since the first Massachusetts coronavirus case was announced on Feb. 1, the Massachusetts Lodging Association said Friday.

The association released its numbers as it asked for government aid to stabilize the hotel industry. In addition to the more than 17,000 jobs lost at Massachusetts hotels, another 66,799 jobs that support hotels have been cut due to the outbreak, MLA said.

At the Hilton Boston Back Bay, occupancy had dropped to as low as 5 percent. A Lexington hotel owner said worker hours were down 90 percent, MLA said.

"We need (government) relief soon," Sturbridge hotelier Jaimin Patel said in firsthand accounts the association compiled to submit to Congress. "The bleeding isn't stopping. Please help us, so we can retain our staff. Times are hard."

On Tuesday, the American Hotel and Lodging Association said 4 million hotel jobs had been cut or are on the verge of being cut in the U.S. Those numbers were released after hoteliers met with Vice President Mike Pence to ask for government assistance.

Nearly one in five workers in the Boston metropolitan area work in the restaurant, entertainment and other industries already hard-hit by the economic downturn resulting from the new coronavirus, according to data from Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While metropolitan areas that rely heavily on tourism are expected to fare worst in a likely recession, eastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire are also vulnerable. And while economists expect the biggest job losses to be in the restaurant, transportation, employment services and mining sectors, the ripple effect of reduced spending and supply-side backups will hit almost every corner of the region's economy.