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JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. — The economy has certainly taken a hit throughout Indiana since the coronavirus forced the state to clamp down and force businesses to temporarily shut down in the name of social distancing guidelines.

Over a million Hoosiers are out of work in all 92 counties, whether they are laid off or furloughed. Plus, the businesses where they used to work have been seeing lower demand for their products because people haven’t been allowed to go out and buy them.

A survey from Aspire Johnson County, the economic development organization and chamber of commerce for Johnson County, is painting a picture of the economic footprint left behind by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We conducted an economic impact survey in the middle of April to assess the quantitative and statistical story of the impact on our local business community,” said Aspire President and CEO Christian Maslowski.

He said about a quarter of the businesses within Johnson County surveyed said they had laid-off workers, but he says the pleasantly surprising thing is that the layoffs only affected about 2-percent of workers at each business, meaning any layoffs that happened in Johnson County were minimal.

But, 63-percent of the respondents said they had furloughed workers and that only one-third of those businesses continued to pay at least half their furloughed employees.

“The number of jobs affected was not as high as we expected it to be,” Maslowski said. “Three-quarters of the respondents surveyed said ‘yes, we have lost at least half of our weekly revenue since the shelter in place’, but they are optimistic and that was the surprising take away.”

Maslowski added that he feels there survey exclusively of Johnson County businesses paints a decent reflection of how the rest of the state’s economy is fairing. But, he acknowledged that each county is different.

“I have looked at some other communities around the state and I think our numbers are a little more positive,” he said. “Because not all of our eggs are in one basket.”

He alludes to the diversity of economic industries in Johnson County, such as manufacturing which he says actually saw an increase in weekly revenue. Maslowski said this was so because manufacturing drives the supply chain and higher demand for essential items that Hoosiers need to survive a pandemic such as this.

Maslowski said other industries such as hospitality and recreation, which saw massive decreases in demand, have similar demand going forward.

“You’ve heard conversations about the recovery. Is it going to be V-shaped or U-shaped? Meaning we sharply went down but is the (economic) recovery going to sharply spike up,” said Maslowski. “There’s pent up consumer demand. People want to get out. Cautiously, of course.”

He said most businesses in Johnson County are optimistic they can cash in on this pent up demand.

Maslowski also said in spite of the economic downturn caused by the shutdowns, he and his organization believe Gov. Holcomb made the right call in rolling out the stay at home order. He said their survey shows most Johnson County residents feel the same way.