Employment in the nonprofit sector as of the end of September had yet to recover from the impact of COVID-19, an analysis from the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies finds. 

Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the analysis found that the total number of nonprofit jobs rose 1.9 percent between August and September but was still down 7.6 percent (973,352 jobs) from February's pre-pandemic levels. Between March and September, the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector was the hardest hit by job losses, down 34.7 percent, followed by education (-12.6 percent); "other services," which include religious, grantmaking, civic, and professional organizations (-11.2 percent); social assistance (-10.1 percent); and health care (-4.3 percent). Although employment numbers improved between August and September for most nonprofit sectors, only social assistance saw a two-digit increase (12.8 percent), while the number of jobs in education fell 23.9 percent. 

According to the analysis, while more than 24 percent of the estimated 1.6 million pandemic-related nonprofit jobs lost had been recovered by June, the overall rate of recovery has been slowing since, slipping to 9 percent in July, 7 percent in August, and 1.1 percent in September. 

"With discouraging evidence that the COVID virus is far from tamed and impediments to the return to normalcy in [areas] in which nonprofits are active likely to remain in place, the estimated [one] million nonprofit workers who have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic may therefore not regain them anytime soon," the analysis concludes. "With Congress and the administration unable to come to agreement on a meaningful new recovery package, it will be up to strained charities to help the nonprofit workforce cope with the pressures its members are under — a challenge that at least some communities have heroically undertaken."

(Photo credit: United Way)