As the U.S. struggles to rebound from a now-resurgent coronavirus, restaurants seem much less likely to deliver an economic boost.
Op-Ed: As a restaurant server, I’m risking my life to serve you during the pandemic. Please remember that
“The restaurant industry’s role in the economy is outsized compared to its share of overall GDP,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “As it is often among the first jobs for many workers, it is critical to the training of the American workforce. It is also a vital source of jobs and incomes for lesser-skilled and -educated workers.”The struggles in the restaurant industry also disproportionately hurt Black and Hispanic workers.
Restaurants had cut nearly 5.4 million jobs in March and April before restoring 1.4 million of them as states began to reopen in May. But the bounce-back is in jeopardy. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have surged across the South and West, forcing states to slow or reverse plans to reopen. Zandi said he worries that restaurant jobs won’t return to prepandemic levels until the mid-2020s.
“They won’t be able to squeeze tables in like they used to,’’ said Barbara Denham, senior economist at the commercial real estate research firm Moody’s Analytics REIS. “A lot of those restaurants … can’t make a profit on a table setup that is half of what it used to be.”The pain isn’t confined to the restaurants themselves. Also hurting are local farms that supply high-end restaurants with top-quality produce and meat through the popular farm-to-table movement.
The struggles of restaurants carry consequences for commercial real estate too. Since the Great Recession, America’s shopping centers have rented space to restaurants, gyms and other so-called experiential tenants as an alternative to traditional shops, which have fallen vulnerable to competition from Amazon and other online mass sellers.
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