Report: Huge Share of Closed Businesses Permanently Shuttered Thanks to Lockdown Measures

More than half of American businesses that closed due to economic lockdowns are permanently shuttered, according to data published Wednesday by Yelp.

There has been a 23 percent increase in the number of business closures since mid-July, with the number of permanent closures reaching 96,966 — representing 60 percent of closed businesses.

“Overall, Yelp’s data shows that business closures have continued to rise with a 34 percent increase in permanent closures since our last report in mid-July,” Justin Norman, Yelp’s vice president of data science, told CNBC on Wednesday.

Restaurants, bars and other establishments that have physical locations have been hit the hardest, data shows.

Los Angeles has experienced 15,000 closures, half of which are permanent, while New York has seen more than 11,000 closures, 63 percent of which are permanent, according to Yelp’s data.

The closures come after government officials across the country began issuing lockdown orders in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a shuttered economy and mass layoffs.

More than 5 million Americans filed jobless claims in April, less than a month after the initial lockdowns began, the Department of Labor reported in April.

The total number of unemployment claims surpassed the number of claims from the entire 2008 Great Recession within weeks of the lockdowns.

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