Nashville Standard

Justin Martin, vice president of a national parking and driving company hit hard by the COVID-19 recession, said he's luckier that most laid off members of his team.

"I am very lucky to still have a leadership position with my organization through the pandemic," Martin, vice president in Premier Parking's Nashville office. "That said, as a leadership team, we have taken pay cuts across the board due to the financial impact the pandemic has had on our company."

If that impact deepens, which seems likely, circumstances could become even more dire for Premier Parking, its furloughed employees and others like him who still have work, Martin said

"Obviously if this situation drags out, our company and many others will be forced to make more hard decisions that could effect me and my counterparts," he said. "The hardest part for me has been the amount of layoffs of front-line staff throughout my region, due to reduced traffic, suspended, and closed locations. I will continue to do my best to lead my team now and moving forward."

As with businesses nationwide, especially the hard-hit hospitality industry upon which Premier Parking depends, 2020 has been a very rough year.

And it isn't over yet.

Premier Pariking's furloughed employees were among the first of millions laid off in the U.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic that landed the nation into what CNN described as "the weirdest recession ever."

In late March, after the company's nationwide furloughs began, a Premier Parking official described to the Tennessee Business Daily the company's wobbly position and called for government assistance.

Before the pandemic, Premier Parking employed more than 2,000 associates in more than 600 locations in more than 40 cities across the nation, providing services at concerts, sporting and other events.

Most of those events have been postponed or canceled, drying up Premier Parking's business. The company's customers have been largely stuck at home waiting out the still-ongoing crisis.

Little to no customers left Premier Parking with no choice but to furlough hundreds of employees.

Those hundreds are among the 21 to 30 million unemployed – depending on who is counting – and another 1.5 million applied for jobless benefits last week.

Meanwhile, a second wave of the pandemic may be underway, a crisis now complicated by nationwide uprisings following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Martin said that he, "like many others," would like to see an end to the crisis, measures put in place to reduce the impact of a second pandemic wave and the national economy back up and running.

"The relief/stimulus is great for many, but ultimately I believe the economy fully reopening, with confident consumers, is what will help all businesses within our industry and others," he said.