The worst fears of many American businesses are coming true. With no recovery in sight from the COVID-19 pandemic, 72,842 businesses across the U.S. have permanently closed, according to the latest research by Yelp.
“Permanent closures have steadily increased,” says Justin Norman, Vice President of Data Science at the crowd-sourced review platform, and many more businesses have closed temporarily during the pandemic. The newest Yelp Economic Average report, published last week, puts current business closures (permanent and temporary) at 132,580. However, the last month brought an ominous shift, as for the first time the share of those businesses that end up permanently closing skyrocketed past the 50 percent mark, to 55 percent.
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