Lytle 2
Discussion Thread: Economic Basics
Due to Covid-19, the dine-in restaurant industry was altered in a way that will require
multiple years, possibly indefinite, to return to its pre-Covid state. During 2021 there were
approximately 14.5 million employees in the industry which increased by roughly 400,000 at the
end of the year; despite this significant increase, there are still over one million fewer employees
than there were prior to Covid-19. In addition to the reduction in employees, the number of
people choosing to work from their homes caused the number of people eating from the comfort
of their own homes to rise, rather than eating out at restaurants.
The economic idea contained in this story is an issue of supply and demand. Due to the
majority of people working from home, the demand for dine-in restaurants has decreased,
meanwhile, the supply for them has remained only slightly below where it was prior to the
Covid-19 outbreak. With more and more people joining the dine-in restaurant industry supply
continues to rise, while the demand has never been lower.
In my opinion, the Covid-19 pandemic has hurt the dine-in restaurant industry in several
different ways, such as the decrease in staff, the rise in take-out becoming the dominant method
of ordering food, and people not being able to leave their homes to enter restaurants for several
months. However, some of the changes have enabled the restaurants to hire staff to do deliveries
allowing more people to access the business from more places than just going to the restaurant in
person.
