Haltiwanger notes pandemic restructuring of economy

Writing in the Washington Post, John D. Harden notes that "[w]hile more than 1,000 establishments in sectors including food services, construction, entertainment and wholesale disappeared during the first part of 2020 in the D.C. metro area, the number of new brick-and-mortar businesses continually increased in the next few quarters and surpassed the number that closed," according to Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

Faculty Associate John Haltiwanger sees it as a restructuring process:  “As time has gone on," he told Harden, "we recognized that the pandemic is leading to a restructuring of the economy. I think we were surprised by the [application growth] because early on in the pandemic, our economy was contracting just an enormous rate — but then it started to turn around.”

It's also common that many business applications do not continue into ongoing businesses. Even so, Haltiwanger said, such failures often drive innovation. “You can’t have our economy without experimentation and entrepreneurship,” Haltiwanger said.

See the complete Washington Post article

"Many D.C.-area businesses closed during the pandiemic. Even more opened," Washington Post, John D. Harden, July 16, 2022