With July Fourth falling in the middle of the calendar week this year, some employees took advantage of a five-day weekend, either combining the Monday and Tuesday preceding July Fourth or the Thursday and Friday after.
Many people took the whole week off, for a nine-day vacation, but many local businesses report that they haven’t seen a significant decline in business or productivity.
A national AAA survey found that 37.9 percent of those polled were leaving town on June 29 and staying away for an average of 5.7 days, with the second highest percentage, 17.2 percent, leaving the next day.
Metro traffic was slightly lower than average. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority spokeswoman Cathy Asato said volume for Tuesday totaled 696,459 riders, just below the average of 700,000 for any given day.
Paul Villella, chief executive officer of HireStrategy, a Reston-based staffing firm, said, “Across the board, it’s obvious that it’s a challenge to communicate with people this week.” He estimates that many local companies, especially those in the services sector, will “have to spend all of July making up for this week.”
Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, a Washington-based law firm, was not short-staffed, according to Director of Communications Shelia Turner. Some people were on vacation, but most of the lawyers are in the office. It “seems like business as usual,” according to Turner.
Several employees at Sprint Nextel, based in Reston, were not in the office this week, but many were working remotely, according to spokesman James Fisher.
This option is available to its employees through its own communications technology.
“We use the technology we sell,” he said.
Local retailers weren’t affected either. The Breadline, a popular lunch location near the White House, saw a very small decrease in business, but most of the traffic from the nearby World Bank was still steady, according to General Manager Bill Hixon.
Sales haven’t gone down, and with a slightly scaled-back staff, the deli was still able to handle the crowd.
