Nonprofit employment would take two years to return to pre-COVID levels: report
Workers at a food pantry by The Campaign Against Hunger during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brooklyn. lev radin / Shutterstock
Nonprofit employment would need two years to recover to pre-pandemic levels at the current rate of job recovery, according to research from the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies.
Nearly 960,000 jobs in the nonprofit sector have been lost since the start of the pandemic as of January 2021, with job losses disproportionately occurring in arts, entertainment and recreation.
January marked a period of slow job growth that saw the creation of 5,158 nonprofit jobs, mostly in education and religious institutions, foundations and civic associations. Since a spike in job recoveries over the summer, growth slowed significantly, with occasional month-to-month dips.
If the average rate of job recovery continues, it would take almost two years for nonprofit employment to return to its pre-pandemic rates. The reversal of job losses also varies for different parts of the sector. Jobs in social assistance would return to normal levels within about 10 months, according to the center’s analysis, while it would take health care jobs a year to reach that milestone. Jobs in nonprofit arts organizations that saw significant losses, however, would take more than two years.