By many measures, 2020 — a year dominated by an emerging pandemic and overrun with natural disasters — was bad for business. A multitude of variables affected the ability of businesses to adapt, but according to new research, demographics were closely tied to impacts on small businesses.
A study carried out by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed that businesses run by minorities, women and veterans, which they call historically underrepresented group operated (HUGO) businesses, were dealt a much worse hand by the pandemic than other businesses. What’s more, the team saw that HUGO businesses reported harsher downturns from COVID-19 alone than even non-HUGO businesses that were struck by natural disasters on top of COVID-19. The findings, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, stress the severity of the resilience gap between HUGO and non-HUGO businesses but also pave routes forward for research that could help struggling businesses.
“Based on the self-reported responses, we found that businesses belonging to the HUGO group are more likely to experience things like business closure, decreased revenue or decreases in the number of customers,” said Payam Aminpour, a NIST postdoctoral research fellow and co-author of the study.
The team’s findings are based on responses from more than 1,350 businesses to a survey NIST and NOAA distributed from July to August in 2020.
The researchers initially developed the survey to learn about the combined impact of the pandemic and extreme weather events, including sudden disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires, and longer-lasting events, such as droughts and winter storms. By collecting that information, the researchers sought to potentially uncover opportunities for federal agencies and ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
