Worcester County small businesses revenue dropped 46% in 2020
Photo | Grant Welker
A Rollstone Bank & Trust and Ninety-Nine restaurant in Worcester closed within weeks of each other this fall. The adjacent Starbucks' drive-through line often snakes around the building. Rollstone has relocated to a new office at 25 Harvard St.
Small businesses in Worcester County were pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic like their counterparts virtually everywhere. New data shows their business is likely to end the year down almost half from where they started.
Small-business revenue has plummeted by 46% from January through Dec. 9, according to Opportunity Insights, an economic activity tracker run by a consortium that includes Harvard University in Cambridge and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. That's an improvement from the lowest point, on April 1 when business was down 58%, but business has been roughly flat since the initial spike in cases dropped in May.
Worcester County businesses aren't alone in their struggles.
Counterparts in Middlesex and Essex counties, which make up the Boston area's western and northern suburbs, revenue is down nearly the same level. It's even higher in Suffolk County, which includes Boston proper and where revenue is down 61% for the year.
Other economic vital signs from Opportunity Insights for the year are similarly bleak.
Almost 37% of Worcester County small businesses remain closed compared to the start of the year. The data doesn't distinguish between those that have closed permanently or temporarily. At the lowest point, in mid-April, half of Worcester County small businesses were closed.
Larger firms have generally fared better during the pandemic, and they likely help account for how employment data is more encouraging. Opportunity Insights counts employment as down 2% from the start of the year in Worcester County. That's a slightly different accounting than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose data shows employment in the Worcester metro area, which includes Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County, as down 6.7% from January to October.
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