Will tourists stop coming to Niagara Falls, sapping the strength of the city's economic backbone?

Will businesses, which generally hate uncertainty, start retrenching? If they aren’t sure whether the coronavirus crisis will spur a recession, will they start hoarding cash and stop investing in new equipment? Will they scrap plans to hire workers because they don't know what lies ahead? Or even worse, will they cut back because their customers are doing the same?

And will the spread of COVID-19 be contained sufficiently?

That uncertainty is why the new job numbers were so worrisome. It would be one thing if we were entering the coronavirus period from a position of relative health. But we're not. Our job market already was showing signs that it was sick.

Just how sick? Consider this:

The Buffalo Niagara region added just 400 jobs throughout 2019. That was the fewest jobs the region has added in any year since 2010, when the region was shrugging off the last vestiges of the Great Recession.