During the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many people who continue to go to work each day to keep us all safe and fed. Workers in the frontline industries responding to the pandemic are critically important to getting our community through these uncertain times. This includes workers in hospitals, grocery stores, warehouses, and more. Just under a third of the Louisville region’s workforce are employed in these frontline industries.
About a third of the workers in frontline industries are within the healthcare sector, which includes hospitals, doctor’s offices, and nursing care facilities. Another quarter of frontline workers are in essential retail and wholesale, which includes grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, banks, and hardware stores as well as their suppliers. Other frontline workers are in industries that help us stay healthy at home by providing deliveries. Community service agencies and public safety workers are providing services to those who need them. Critical manufacturing operations are ensuring supplies of healthcare equipment, medicine, food, and cleaning products are continuing to be produced. Building cleaning services are operating to keep facilities clean and sanitized.
The workers in these frontline industries take on additional health risks by showing up to work each day. In this post, we take a look at the characteristics of the workers who are helping to keep buildings clean, provide access to the goods we all need, and caring for the sick and vulnerable.
Women are especially prevalent as workers in healthcare and social assistance. More than three-quarters of the workers in healthcare and social assistance are women.
Immigrants are also represented in Louisville’s frontline industries, particularly in essential manufacturing, building cleaning services, and essential transportation.
Workers of color make up a significant portion of the Louisville region’s frontline industries. The workers in building cleaning services, essential manufacturing, social assistance, mail delivery, and essential transportation are over-represented by workers of color, as compared to the average Louisville area worker.
The vast majority of workers in frontline industries have health insurance coverage through their employer or through other means. However, a disproportionate percentage of workers in essential transportation, building cleaning services, and social services do not have any health insurance coverage. This clearly makes these workers more vulnerable in the current health crisis.
There are several frontline industries where workers have median earnings lower than the average Louisville area worker. Reported median earnings in building cleaning services, essential retail, social assistance, and mail delivery are all lower than the median earnings for the overall region.
Our community relies on the workers in these frontline industries to continue to show up to work every day during this global pandemic. While we should all express our appreciation and gratitude to these workers, some are calling on the federal government to provide additional compensation and support for the risk they are undertaking.
For additional information on workers in Louisville’s frontline industries, click here.
For a list of industry codes used in this analysis, click here.
All data comes from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample and is representative of the Louisville Metropolitan Statistical Area.
