ORLANDO, Fla. — About 43,000 unionized Disney World workers will be furloughed starting April 19, the largest wave of employees in Central Florida to be sent home without pay because of the coronavirus crisis.

The Service Trades Council Union, a coalition of six locals, announced the news Saturday on Facebook Live. The coalition said Disney had agreed to provide free healthcare benefits for a year and will keep paying for a program called Disney Aspire that gives workers a free education. About 200 union workers deemed essential will stay on the job, the union said.

It’s the latest and most crushing blow to Central Florida’s economy in the midst of the pandemic.

Disney World is poised to furlough most of its 77,000 employees, union and non-union. Adding that number of people to the unemployment rolls would nearly triple metro Orlando’s unemployment rate from 2.9% in February, the latest figure available, to 8.5% now, according to data from the state.

“Things are really looking bad,” said Hector Sandoval, a University of Florida economics professor, about Disney’s furloughs. “The economy is going to take time to recover.”

And as the workers are furloughed from the world’s vacation capital, it creates a ripple effect at the airport, with rental car companies and elsewhere, University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith said.

“All the suppliers that will normally actively be engaged with Disney and doing business with Disney have gone idle as well,” Snaith said.

Union leaders acknowledged they did not want furloughs but that Walt Disney Co. was within its rights to impose them and had already paid workers’ wages for weeks after the parks shut down March 16.

In recent days, Disney had said non-union employees and members of several smaller unions will be furloughed without pay starting April 19 because of the pandemic.

In Orlando, Disney World closed March 16 and no official opening date is set as concerns about spreading the virus exist and government orders encouraging people to stay home still stand. In Florida, the death toll Saturday from the highly contagious virus was nearly 450 people and 18,494 reported cases of infection.

Elsewhere among Orlando’s major theme parks, Universal Orlando Resort, which employs about 25,000 people, has promised to pay the full wages to its employees through April 19 as its theme parks are closed at least until May 31.