Working Under COVID-19: Experiences of Nail Salon Workers in California, New York, Pennsylvania & New Jersey

The COVID-19 pandemic has destabilized the nail salon industry in the U.S. When it first appeared here in March 2020, a slew of local, statewide, and national policies called for shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of the virus. These policies effectively shut down in-person and non-essential businesses in the service industry, including nail salons. Nail salons in the U.S. are predominantly small businesses, made up of mostly Asian immigrant women, and these closures uniquely devastated both workers and owners. Both have experienced challenges throughout the pandemic, including accessing governmental relief funding to reopening and operating salons with a reduced flow of clientele. Yet, issues concerning labor, health, and safety in the sector predate the pandemic and have only intensified since the pandemic’s start.

The experience of nail salon reopenings and in-person nail services has varied across the U.S. over the past two years, especially given the changing dimensions of regional vaccine and testing access and vaccine hesitancy as well as the emergence of new COVID-19 variants such as Delta and Omicron. These dynamics affected customer flow, salon worker rehiring, and ultimately, the viability of these businesses.

The need to shore up salon workplace safety and cleanliness has imposed an increased financial burden on both salons and their manicurists. As the industry continues to reel from the pandemic, it not only needs new practices to ensure health and safety. It also needs innovative strategies that reimagine a just recovery and a path toward upward mobility for its workforce.

Three community organizations that have worked with nail salon workers, Adhikaar for Human Rights & Social Justice, the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative (CHNSC), and VietLead, launched this research to better understand the experiences of salon workers during COVID-19, the changes in the industry in this timespan, and how to best address nail salon workers’ current concerns. This brief is a portrait of national trends in the nail salon sector during COVID-19. It compiles surveys, interviews, and focus groups from three regions in the four states across the U.S. with the most nail salons across the country–California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.