As of Aug. 31, 163,735 businesses have indicated on Yelp that they have closed, a 23 percent increase since mid-July. Yelp also measures businesses whose closures have become permanent. That number has steadily increased over the past six months, now reaching 97,966, representing 60 percent of closed businesses that won’t be reopening. “Overall, Yelp’s data shows that business closures have continued to rise, with a 34 percent increase in permanent closures since our last report in mid-July,” Justin Norman, Yelp’s vice president of data science, told CNBC.