March started out busy for Spokane, WA-based Zome Design (asi/366115). The decorator was printing 1,000 shirts a day in anticipation of the annual Lilac Bloomsday Run, originally scheduled for May. Plus, there were orders to support The Shock, Spokane’s arena football team, and many other clients. Things were going well.

Then, the coronavirus came to town.

“All of a sudden, we were getting people canceling orders left and right,” says owner Brayden Jessen says. “We panicked. … It was changing day by day. Everybody was scared, and nobody knew what to do.

“We had to lay people off.”

Jessen slashed his staff by just over half – going from 37 employees down to 18 in a matter of days. “We probably should have gone even lower,” Jessen admits.

Zome’s story is not unusual. A similar tale – sometimes with even more dramatic cuts – played out across the promotional products industry and the country at large. Unemployment skyrocketed at the end of March and into April, with more than 22 million Americans filing for jobless claims in the four weeks after President Trump declared a national emergency.

But even amid all the uncertainty, many suppliers and distributors have been working diligently to bring staff back, whether by pivoting to manufacture and source personal protective equipment (PPE), focusing on fundraising or with the help of programs created through the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.

In April, Zome applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. The program was meant to provide small-business loans of up to two-and-a-half times average payroll, capping at $10 million. Given out by banks and other lenders but overseen by the Small Business Administration (SBA), the loans were set up to be 100% forgivable if used to keep employees on payroll or pay for certain other allowable expenses. Though the program got off to a rocky start and has had many detractors, “I think it’s going to save our business,” says Jessen.

Immediately after receiving funding, Jessen brought back one of his artists from unemployment and started making plans to phase more of the staff back in. “We’re strategically trying to slowly bring people back, but we have to be smart about it,” Jessen says. “I don’t want to have to lay everybody off again.”

Even companies that held on to their employees throughout the pandemic faced doubts about that decision. “I have seven employees, and I can keep them sort of busy doing two people’s work,” says Kate Ivory, owner of GIDI Promotions in Portland, OR. But the payroll costs are “bleeding the company, at this point,” she said in early April. Ivory wonders: “Am I better off putting them on unemployment?”

Culture Studio (asi/700559) in Chicago held on to its whole office and art staff through the pandemic. “It hasn’t been pretty on the P&L,” says CEO Rich Santo. The decorator did have to lay off and furlough workers on the production side, down to about 10% of staff in its facility, with everyone who could work remotely staying home.

Like Jessen, Santo planned to use Culture Studio’s PPP loan to bring back staffers. “We’ll be ramping back up,” Santo said after receiving the funding in mid-April. “We’re going to bring everybody back.”

The Allen Company (asi/34330) in Blanchester, OH, had to lay off two-thirds of its 100-person staff in March after business came to a screeching halt due to the coronavirus. But even as he took that step, Allen Company President Stan Dohan was already looking at ways to bring his people back on the payroll. He worked with county commissioners and other government officials to ensure his supplier firm would be deemed an essential service.

“We phased back in production within a week with permission,” he says. When production began again, Dohan was able to bring back some of his workers immediately. By mid-April, he says, he was back at full staff. “We brought everyone back on payroll.”

Overall, promo companies expressed caution about their staffing plans, aiming for slow and strategic rehiring plans. If coronavirus-induced shutdowns continue for too long, it could negate temporary stimulus measures in the CARES Act. “I think unfortunately it’s going to be a harsh reality,” Dohan says. “Some people brought back [thanks to PPP loans] will still end up back on unemployment.”