VICTORIA — Entire sectors of B.C.’s economy have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, with hundreds of thousands of jobs lost and warnings of an even more difficult time to come.

Business leaders say they are not surprised by a new economic analysis from the B.C. Business Council that says the provincial economy, measured by gross domestic product, is set to shrink seven to 12 per cent this year due to the coronavirus. Just six weeks ago, B.C.’s GDP had been forecast to grow almost two per cent.

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“We all understand the economic fundamental that one person’s spending is one person’s income, but that virtuous cycle has been blown up,” said Val Litwin, B.C. Chamber of Commerce CEO.

“We have massive curtailments and closures in every single sector in every single location in B.C. The economy is starting to slow to the point it has very concerning long-term implications.”

The province’s business community is in “full-on crisis mode,” said Litwin. It is lobbying the federal and provincial governments with a single voice, a new COVID-19 group that brings together associations from across the economy in construction, trade, small business, forestry, mining, engineering, hospitality, food service, development, real estate, technology, fisheries, farming, roadbuilding, labour and more.

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Particularly hard hit as been the restaurant and tourism sectors. B.C.’s public health officer has ordered restaurants to close table service and provide only takeout or delivery. Canada’s border closures and travel bans have virtually wiped out international visitors to the province, and many ski resorts, tourist attractions and hotels have closed.

“We are an industry of 180,000 people and I think there’s at least 150,000 people who are not working today,” said Ian Tostenson, president of the B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association.

Restaurants already operate with tight margins and difficult conditions, but the food sector will be “forever altered” by COVID-19, he said. Many of the province’s 13,000 restaurants may never reopen, whenever the crisis passes.

“There’s going to be thousands of businesses that will have a really hard time returning because a lot of them are going to walk away,” he said.

Tourism has been hit even worse.

“The sector is decimated,” said Walt Judas, CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of B.C. “We’ve got a total sector complement of just over 300,000 people and probably two-thirds of them or more are now unemployed, and some might have been significantly curtailed as far as their hours are concerned.”

Almost 44 per cent of Canadians surveyed in a new poll by the Angus Reid Institute say they or someone in their household has lost employment hours due to the economic downturn, and almost one-third of respondents said they worry they may miss a rent or mortgage payment this month.

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Among those still working, half say it’s just a matter of time before their hours are cut as well, according to Angus Reid. The online survey, from March 20-23, was a random sample of 1,644 adults in the Angus Reid forum and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Both tourism operators and restaurants say they’ll need an influx of easily-accessible cash and forgivable small business loans by the federal and provincial governments in order to one day restart operations and rehire staff.

Most of the business community has high praise for the B.C. NDP government’s efforts so far to defer major taxes, like the employer health tax, to allow businesses to keep cash on hand for other emergency priorities.

“We are saying kudos to government for what you’ve tabled so far, but keep going,” said Litwin.

They say it also exposes the fact that so many small businesses were already overtaxed and burdened by fees that there’s now no wiggle room to survive a crisis.

Tourism operators are hit with a double-whammy, said Judas, because they also need to have the cash available to refund all the cancelled bookings coming in. The sector has asked government for quick relief on fees for small operators, guide outfitters, fishing charters and Crown tenure fees, he said, as well as a major boost to Destination B.C.’s marketing efforts when the crisis concludes.

There is no precedent in B.C.’s history for the kind of economic damage being done, and so it is difficult to project the impact on the province, said Werner Antweiler, a professor at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business.

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“Things are moving fast, and there is really no good economic model to work with to forecast the effects,” he said. “The numbers to watch are the ‘hard facts’ of the economy: unemployment figures, industrial output, energy use, etc. that are more readily indicative of actual economic activity (or lack thereof).”

Government’s first goal should be to support unemployed workers, helping them make up for lost income so they can keep their families fed and in homes, said Antweiler. “We can worry about broader economic stimulus when we have a clearer vision on how and when to restart the economy.’