NASHUA – Local officials are still in the early stages of assessing how much of an economic impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

“We at the local level will be able to understand better over the next couple weeks as to what our true economic impact is, but what we have seen, at least initially, is our smaller businesses, our independent, smaller employers, typically in the service industry, are being affected a lot more than larger employers,” Director of Economic Development Tim Cummings said.

As many businesses shorten their hours, reduce staff or temporarily shut down, Cummings said the effect of COVID-19 on Nashua’s economy is being monitored closely. City projects such as the performing arts center and Downtown Nashua Riverfront Master Plan are still moving forward, although slower than they would have otherwise if not navigating through the midst of a public health crisis. Cummings believes officials are making COVID-19 their foremost priority at this time.

Relative to the performing arts center, Cummings says that the Capital Campaign Committee is taking a respite from direct solicitation, but that they are still meeting and organizing their efforts to continue moving forward.

Cummings said with the new unemployment data, all the evidence suggests that we are going to be in an economic downtown equal to or greater than what was experienced in 2008. Cummings said he recently saw a Goldman and Sachs unemployment projection that suggests in the worst of the 2008-09 recession, unemployment hovered around 8-10 percent nationally, whereas Goldman and Sachs is projecting that unemployment could be as great as 14 or 16 percent.

“What I can say positively to that, is that typically New England, and New Hampshire specifically, performs better than those national numbers that Goldman and Sachs are talking about.”

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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