That depressing statistic comes from the jobs report released Friday and led the Conference Board to observe that it shows how the pandemic continues to hamper job growth, especially in the in-person services industries.
In the case of restaurants, which were hit harder than any other industry during the pandemic, more than 110,000 closed, erasing nearly 2.5 million jobs that had existed before the pandemic. The closures were especially severe for full-service restaurants, according to Hudson Riehle, senior vp-research and knowledge group, National Restaurant Association.
The significance of this loss to the total economy is hard to overstate: Restauarants and food service providers had been expected to provide 15.6 million jobs in 2020 — 10% of all payroll jobs in the economy.
The eateries that closed had been in business, on average, for 16 years and employed an everage of 32 people. About 17% employed at lest 50 people before they closed.
One thing that helped the restaurants that stayed open was to-go cocktails, beer and wine. The restaurant association found that 35% of all customers (and 53% of millennials) said they are more likely to order from a restaurant that offer alcohol beverages to go.
“According to our research, off-premises alcohol sales represented, on average, 10% of sales for restaurants offering the option,” Riehle said. “This has often allowed restaurants to bring back a bartender or additional employee. For many states, the change to allow alcohol to-go was temporary during the pandemic, but consumers and operators both overwhelmingly support making the changes permanent.”
The political answer to the weak jobs report from Republicans was federal programs that “pay people not to work.” We think the more fundamental problem is that people can’t work if there aren’t places to work.