COVID-19 IMPACTS ON ASIAN AMERICANS
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COVID-19 IMPACTS ON ASIAN AMERICANS
The COVID-19 pandemic has had many effects on Asian Americans. This essay will discuss the financial problems they have faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the possible solutions. The major problem that is the root of the lack of job opportunities for Asian Americans and their financial problems is the social problem of discrimination. Many of the Asians living in America own small businesses; their businesses have been seen to face discrimination and xenophobia and discrimination, bearing in mind that COVID-19 originated from China. This way, people tend not to shop in their shops or look for service from Asian American businesses.
In recent research, it has been proven that racism, discrimination, and xenophobia against a group of people. Asian American businesses facing discrimination have declined in sales per day, whereby people are not buying or requesting service from Asian American businesses. In the small businesses owned by Asian Americans, several people are working in the place, both Americans and Asian Americans; it was noted that after COVID-19 worsened and discovered in china, the American coworkers displayed some characteristics of xenophobia towards the Asian Americans. When Asian Americans experience this, they feel uncomfortable in the environment, and during the day while at work, this affects them psychologically, which in turn affects their performance in work (Yu, 2020). the xenophobia they face at work is from their American coworkers and the clients they are serving or the customers. According to experts psychologically stable workers are more willing to learn, excel, and connect with their customers and clients.
When the Asian Americans started to experience xenophobia, racism, and discrimination at their work places due to the history of COVID-19, it was noted that there was an increase in absenteeism from the Asian American employees. This affects the business institution in that the work that was supposed to be carried out by the employee on that particular day has to be pushed to the next day or when the employee will come back, this affects the smooth running of operations in a business which in turn affects the production of quality service and goods. The other effect of xenophobia, racism, and discrimination attributed to COVID-19, especially if it is coming from within the business, may lead to bad PR, loss of income, and even litigation. This can further be explained as to how people see a business from outside of the organization; studies have proved that employees are among a firm’s biggest potential advocates thus, when workers are not happy with their working environment, they complain to their family and friends who spread the word and this way the business will have a general judgment from the public, this can lead to loss of earnings as people don’t want to be associated with the company or the business that is racially discriminating some of the employees within the organization. This also paralyzes employee recruitment process since no one wants to work in a place where they, as Asian Americans, face Xenophobia from their American coworkers.
Asian Americans also face discrimination, racism, and xenophobia when it comes to job opportunities. Studies show that Asian Americans graduate from the university at a higher rate than the Americans; this is not helpful since they face xenophobia and discrimination in their places of work; this has been observed to be on the increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that rarely have companies recruited an Asian American as a new employee; during this pandemic, this affects the financial status of the Asian Americans and leads to low living standards. Under job opportunities is the other issue about top positions in a business institution, with the rise of xenophobia and discrimination against Asian Americans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to have started in China. Studies show that Asian Americans are less likely to secure top positions in an institution than white Americans with the same qualifications. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this condition of being treated unfairly.
Recent research has shown that the Asian American population has been hit hard by unemployment during this COVID-19 period. Asian Americans are the minority group that faced the highest job losses during this COVID-19 period; they lost work at a 9.7 % higher than white Americans; the reason for this loss of jobs is that most of them chose to voluntary leave work; this may be due to racism and xenophobia related to COVID-19 at work. The other possible reason, according to the research, is that compared to the other ethnic groups, Asian Americans are more aware of the disease and its dangers, this because it first started in China and then spread to Korea. Thus they know the extent of the disease since they have relatives back at home who tell them how serious the disease is.
The educated Asian American employees have adapted to work from home, this way isolating themselves to be safe and also keep working, however for the less educated whose work is manual labor or it has to be physical contact with people, to add on that Asian American customers and clients are more concerned and aware of the virus. They are less likely to go to Asian American restaurants or Asian American grocery stores; the Asian American employees of such places have to be laid off due to the clients and customer behaviors that affect the Asian American economy hard. Studies have shown that by May 2020, the rate of unemployment and joblessness of Asians was 15% and 21%, respectively, compared to that of White Americans, whose unemployment was 12% and joblessness was at 16%.
The study also suggested that these economic effects of COVID-19 on the Asian American community are because the population of Asian Americans is concentrated in a small number of states. Most of them frequently work in industries that have been affected seriously by COVID-19. Further results showed that 1 in 4 employed Asian Americans works in either of the following categories; hospitality, leisure, retail, repair shops, haircutting, and laundry; speculating on hospitality sector the rate of unemployment of Asian Americans in April was 39% and the rate for white Americans was 36%, in the other minor sectors the overall rate of unemployment of Asian Americans was 40% and 19% for the white Americans. Another aspect of the study was closing of Asian American business, it was noted that a lot of Asian American businesses have been closed due to the disease, closing has been due to the reasons that we stated earlier in this paper (Fairlie, 2020). The researchers had an estimate that 233,000 Asian American businesses closed from February to April, this is a decline of 28% in only two months compared to the whites which was at a rate of 17%.
Several recommendations have been made to ensure that after this pandemic is over the Asian American community will recover from the big blow that they have faced economically due to COVID-19 in relation to racism, discrimination and xenophobia together with the fact that it originated from Asia. The policy recommendations aim especially at the Asian Americans working in the service sector. The government should enact federal policies to extend the benefits of unemployment, and small businesses assistance, the government should develop a policy which caters for the unemployed benefits in case of a pandemic for instance the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance program; Paycheck Protection Program is a program structured to loan small businesses to ensure the workers are paid, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan is also a loaning program that provides financial assistance according to the amount of economic injury incurred by the business institution.
A possible solution to the economic challenges that the Asian American community have faced is enacting more policies under the state government that benefit the marginal population that is less likely to receive unemployment benefits stipulated under the CARES Act. Unemployment benefits refer to payments given to unemployed people on several conditions mainly on the condition that they have to look for a job. The CARES Act stipulates the existence of unemployment benefits in two ways; provision of an extra 600 dollars weekly payment and increasing the maximum number of weeks an individual may receive the unemployment benefits. The new policies should cater for the unemployed amongst the marginalized population thus which include the Asian Americans who are facing unemployment and joblessness due to the issues discussed earlier in the paper. With the unemployment benefit the Asian Americans will be able to sustain themselves and recover from the financial struggles that they are facing at the moment due to the impact of COVID-19. Another recommendation is enacting more policies which will assist small businesses to start and grow. And restructuring the resiliency funds which has been established by various local governments. Resiliency fund is a program in some of the states which supports small businesses in continuity plan development, new marketing efforts, model redesigning or even digitalizing the businesses and enhancing the use of e-commerce. All the states should enhance the resiliency funds forum, this will help Asian American businesses after the COVID-19 pandemic as they will need to reopen and they will need funding and since they have been closed for all that time the business cannot fund themselves they therefore need financial assistance from outside the business institution especially a well-structured funding forum.
Another recommendation to tackle the economic challenges facing Asian Americans is increasing the efforts of ensuring that marginalized populations such as Asian Americans are taking advantage of the government resources, private resources and philanthropic resources that are being given to help people and communities face the financial hardships brought by COVID-19. The government, private institutions, no-governmental organizations and philanthropic organizations are giving out resources to the marginalized population to help them out during this hard times of COVID-19 especially economically. Asian Americans need to be aware of the resources being made available so that they will take advantage of this chance and scoop what they might help them when the pandemic is over and they are ready to open their businesses once more. The legislation should also enact federal and state policies that will come up with programs to equip economically challenged Americans with skills especially Asian Americans who have been mostly affected during this COVID-19 period. The program should aim at equipping them with skills that are marketable during this COVID-19 period and even after the crisis. This will be of great help to the unskilled labor amongst the Asian American population, and with the newly acquired skills they will be able to get jobs and improve their living standards and recover from the economic beat down that they are facing at the moment due to the crisis.
All the Americans also need to work together in harmony and fight racism, discrimination and xenophobia, this was discussed earlier whereby it was noted that xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans increased during this period of COVID-19. Xenophobic behavior at the work place can be dealt with if the manager is willing to do so. All employees deserve to be treated equally and fairly (Hu, 2020). Business institution and workplaces should introduce a zero tolerance policy whereby xenophobic behavior by the employees or the clients or the customers should not be tolerated. The managers should also provide physical and psychological support to the affected employees before it reaches to the point where they want to quit or they lose their morale which affects their performance. The managers should also resolve the matter as fast as possible and carefully to ensure that all parties are comfortable with each other and are ready to work together under the same workspace. The managers should also work on creating a safe space in the workspace, this ensures that employees will be open when they feel discriminated or subjected to xenophobia. This will increase the levels of understanding each other and communication between the employees.
From the above essay it is evident that Asian Americans have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper has discussed the major fields under the economic challenges that they have faced; job opportunities and business. Statistics have shown that they have the highest rates of unemployment and joblessness compared to the whites, despite the fact that they tend to be more educated than the whites. The rates have increased during the pandemic and many of the Asian American business closed due to reasons discussed in the paper. The other part of the paper was discussing the solutions and recommendations to the economic challenges. The solutions and recommendations have the potential to solve the economic challenges and guide the Asian American community towards recovery of the economic beat down that they experienced during this crisis of COVID-19, emphasizing on the issue of all Americans considering each other as equals to eliminate the root problem of discrimination, racism and xenophobia.
References
Hu, L., & Honoré, B. E. (2020). The Covid-19 Pandemic and Asian American Employment.
Yu, H. H. (2020). Revisiting the bamboo ceiling: Perceptions from Asian Americans on experiencing workplace discrimination. Asian American Journal of Psychology.
Carter, R. T., & Pieterse, A. L. (2020). Measuring the effects of racism: Guidelines for the assessment and treatment of race-based traumatic stress injury. Columbia University Press.
Tessler, H., Choi, M., & Kao, G. (2020). The Anxiety of Being Asian American: Hate Crimes and Negative Biases During the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 1-11.
Fairlie, R. W. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 on small business owners: Evidence of early-stage losses from the April 2020 current population survey (No. w27309). National Bureau of Economic Research.