Month long summer vacations only work if a lot of people keep working.
All the hospitality and transportation industries. Medical and dental stay going. Law enforcement. Emergency services.
True. It was primarily manufacturing and associated office workers that got the August shutdown, along with a lot of “non-essential” government employees. Even on the NATO base where my dad was stationed, they got “summer hours,” meaning their workday stopped at 1:00 p.m. in July and August. The top brass encouraged this, so my dad took off and joined us at beach or pool when his workload permitted. It wasn’t every day, but a couple of times a week he could take advantage of that.