The spread of Covid-19 has put the most vulnerable in our society at great risk. Think of those still ringing up groceries, delivering packages, staying at their posts at stores, and all the gig workers who have been forced onto the front lines in order to maintain some semblance of normalcy for the rest of us. But a wave of bad news out of the retail industry shows the way the virus is already decimating jobs and putting into danger people forced to ramp up delivery and shipping.

The pandemic is taking a toll on retailers and brands of all sizes. Massive companies like Macy’s and start-ups like Everlane have started to furlough or let employees go. On Monday morning, Macy’s announced that it is furloughing almost all of its 130,000 employees. The department-store chain, which also owns Bloomingdale’s, closed its physical locations on March 18 and noted in a press release that “while the digital business remains open, we have lost the majority of our sales due to the store closures.”

Everlane, similarly, let go over 200 employees working in stores or as customer-service representatives over the weekend, according to Vice. Another 68 full-time retail employees were furloughed. This most recent news follows a grim trend in the retail industry over the past couple of weeks: Tailored Brands, the parent company of Jos. A Bank and Men’s Wearhouse, and L Brands, the conglomerate behind Victoria’s Secret, furloughed all store workers last week.

It’s no coincidence that so many massive layoffs are coming for retailers, particularly in-store employees. In a conversation earlier this month with Chris Gibbs of Union L.A., he explained, “Retail is always the first to feel good and bad." As revenue starts to dry up, the people most directly connected to sales are the first to suffer. The stakes are incredibly high too: There are 52 million people contributing to this almost $4 trillion industry in the U.S. alone, according to The New York Times.

On the flip side, as the pendulum swings to online shopping, Amazon warehouse employees are required to work in dangerous conditions. In Staten Island, close to 100 of those workers will strike on Monday, according to CNBC. Employees tell the network they are concerned with the working conditions after a person working there tested positive for coronavirus. While an Amazon spokesperson says the worker is currently quarantined and it’s following “all guidelines from local health officials,” employees want to see the entire warehouse shut down and thoroughly cleaned. Chris Smalls, a management assistant at the Staten Island site known as JFK8, told CNBC that employees are afraid the virus will continue to spread exponentially if the warehouse continues to simply remain open. “Since the building won’t close by itself, we’re going to have to force [Amazon’s] hand,” said Smalls. “We will not return until the building gets sanitized.”

Employees working at warehouses in New Jersey used by luxury secondhand retailer TheRealReal are also afraid to go to work, according to The New York Times. One person sent a letter to the state's governor asking why they were even allowed to keep working, given the order for nonessential businesses to send people home. “I work for an online luxury consignment brand taking pictures of clothing to be then uploaded to a website for people to browse and buy from. This is not an essential business,” they wrote.

The coronavirus has put many industries and jobs into precarious positions, but the barrage of news about layoffs and furloughs is a stark reminder that most of the risk falls not necessarily on brands like Amazon or Macy’s, but on the part-time employees who make those companies run. Even Everlane, which has long touted its ethical and transparent business, laid off unionizing workers while sharing sunny news about its “surprisingly solid” online business with staffers. From a purely economic perspective, almost everyone will feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic for years to come, but first it’s coming for retail workers.