A new joint research project by Berkeley and University of Chicago researchers will offer weekly updates on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on small and medium-sized businesses, Berkeley's California Policy Lab announced last week. Economics and public policy professor Jesse Rothstein, director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and the California Policy Lab, says the research aims to help inform policymakers about the pandemic's effects on workers. One of their key findings has been that 40% of the clients of the software firm Homebase, which provides data from workers' timecards, had at least temporarily closed their doors by March 22. By that same week, 91 percent of firms were reporting fewer hours than in late January. He also says it appears that many companies that are shutting down are not laying off workers, but keeping them. "To me that's really good news," he says. Professor Rothstein was recently interviewed for a story at Berkeley News, and he participated in a panel discussion with other Berkeley faculty on Friday. That discussion can be viewed online here.