Investigating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Economic Activities Using Multidimensional Scaling and K-Means Clustering Analysis

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic all over the world, significant changes have occurred globally with regard to economic activities. Turkey is one of the countries to be affected by this situation on a global and local basis. The number of workplaces and employment in various segments of economic activity are important indicators through which this impact can be observed. These changes have occurred locally in different regions and different lines of business. This study aims to reveal the pandemic’s impact by examining by province the number of workplaces and number of employees with compulsory insurance just before the pandemic (2019) and in the pandemic’s early period in 2020 when it was seen spread rapidly and intensely. The study uses multidimensional scaling and clustering analyses from the statistical data analysis and data mining techniques as the research methods. The findings obtained with these methods have been visualized and interpreted in line with the purpose of the study. When comparing the data of these two years in accordance with the obtained results, the number of workplaces and the number of employees with compulsory insurance were seen to have increased overall. When examining the results on the basis of operating segments, the pandemic is seen to have had a striking impact with regard to the changes, with the operation segments based on mobility and on those prohibited by the pandemic measures being observed to have been affected by a decrease in terms of the numbers of workplaces and employees. Meanwhile, these restrictions led to growth in e-commerce, particularly by moving retail sectors to digital environments, and this caused a high rate of increase in postal and cargo activities. Home care activities were additionally concluded to be among the segments with the highest increase due to the pandemic’s effects.