Elizabeth Laker received the email telling her she would be made redundant less than six weeks after discovering she was pregnant. “It took me a couple of days to respond to them. Being pregnant, my hormones were all over the place. I’d done a lot of crying, I wasn’t sure how we’d keep a roof over our heads.”

The 26-year-old from Crawley, who worked in sales, is among thousands in the West Sussex town now facing financial hardship amid the coronavirus pandemic.

As the health emergency mutates into an economic crash, with the country in lockdown, Crawley has been identified as being the town at highest risk of job losses in Britain. More than half of jobs here could be furloughed or lost, according to a report from the Centre for Cities thinktank.

Dean Laker, Elizabeth’s husband, has been furloughed under the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme from his assistant store manager role at a retail outlet near Gatwick airport, the heart of the local economy. His reduced wages just about cover the rent and bills, while Elizabeth awaits her first universal credit payment.

Elizabeth, who was told she was being made redundant because she had just been taken on, said it took her two days to apply for benefits after joining an online queue of more than 152,000 people.

“Before this we were living quite comfortably. We had disposable money at the end of each month, but now we’re left high and dry. I have no idea what to do.”

Elizabeth Laker was made redundant less than six weeks after finding she was pregnant. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Far from the usual hive of activity, with planes taking off and landing almost every minute at Gatwick during peak times, Crawley has fallen quiet as Covid-19 spreads. People in face masks, standing two metres apart, queue outside food shops, but the town centre is otherwise eerily empty.

In the shadow of Britain’s second busiest airport, Crawley had the highest concentration of aviation jobs of 62 locations the Centre for Cities studied, putting it at heightened risk with global air traffic largely grounded. Across all sectors, more than 53,000 jobs are vulnerable, out of about 94,000 in the area.

Peter Lamb, the Labour leader of Crawley borough council, says airport workers live in up to one in four homes. He fears such dependence on a single industry could turn the town into a modern, southern version of a northern mining or shipbuilding community during the 1980s, bereft of employment.

We were living quite comfortably. Now we’re left high and dry. I have no idea what to do Elizabeth Laker

The International Monetary Fund fears the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Britain’s economy could shrink by 35% this spring, the government’s independent economic forecaster has warned, with unemployment hitting more than 2 million by June.

As a new town developed to move Londoners out of poor and bombed-out homes after the second world war, Crawley enjoyed relative prosperity for decades. Before Covid-19, average wages were higher and unemployment lower than the national average.

Sitting in the empty town hall, a 1950s concrete monolith now under redevelopment, Lamb says a boom in air travel helped avoid industrial job losses in the 1980s. “There is simply no experience of trying to deal with mass unemployment. It was quite clear that we were going to be harder hit than almost anywhere else. Maybe now the problem will actually get a look-in from government.”

Replacing the normal taxis, cars and flustered families waving goodbye in a tangle of suitcases, a solitary police car watches over the drop-off point of Gatwick’s north terminal, temporarily mothballed. The three-lane link road of the M23, recently widened to cope with 46 million annual passengers, is quiet, with only buzzards and hawks overhead. Instead of 55 planes an hour, as few as three will depart today.

In normal times, Gatwick adds about £2.3bn to Britain’s economy each year. More than 250 firms employ 24,000 staff at duty-free shops, pubs, restaurants, car hire and bureaux de change. A further 20,000 work in the supply chain. Despite losing out to Heathrow on a new runway to boost Britain’s airport capacity, Gatwick put in place expansion plans to create 20,000 jobs. Lamb fears they could be at risk. “Right now, everything has ground to a halt.”

Tamara Butler found temporary work at Tesco after losing her new job in Gatwick’s duty-free shopping area. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Tamara Butler, 22, worked as cabin crew for EasyJet at Gatwick, but resigned in February to take a job at a cosmetics company in the duty-free shopping area. Left with no job to go to as the crisis hit, she found work at a local Tesco, as one of an army of temps being taken on by supermarkets to cope with demand from families forced to stay home.

“You don’t really expect anything like this to happen in your lifetime, you can’t be prepared for it. I’m done with Brexit, then when you think you’re over something – this comes along. If they don’t make a film about 2020, I’ll be shocked.”

You don’t really expect anything like this to happen in your lifetime, you can’t be prepared for it Tamara Butler

Government bailouts for airlines have been mooted, including for Virgin Atlantic, based in Crawley. Butler’s former employer, burning through £40m a week as its planes sit idle, will benefit from a £600m government-backed loan.

But pleas from Richard Branson, the owner of the Virgin empire, prompted a backlash over his tax status. Meanwhile EasyJet’s owner, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, and his family received almost £60m in dividends last month.

Henry Smith, the Conservative MP for Crawley, said tough conditions must be attached to any bailouts. “There are certain airlines that might be British brands, but are significantly foreign-owned or by non-domiciled taxpayers, so there are some sensitive issues around that. I’m not going to name names but I think you can guess.”

While his party has faced criticism for overseeing a decade of austerity - eroding the welfare safety net – he said unprecedented government support could help Britain to quickly recover.

“I sincerely hope it doesn’t mean we are entering a period of austerity or renewed high taxation. I’m hoping that we can come out of the immediate health emergency as soon as possible so that we can recover what is fundamentally a strong economy.”