Industrial activity and its spatial structure during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland

The aim of the paper is to assess the magnitude of the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on industrial activity in Poland in 2019-2022, and to determine the consequences for the spatial structure of industry by voivodeships. The paper analyses, among other things, the quarterly values of industrial production, the number of entities registered in industrial activity, and the monthly values of the general business climate indicator in manufacturing. The analyses of the regional structure of industry were complemented by a study of the survivability process of entities, measured by the number of entities undertaking industrial activity and the number of entities deregistered in each quarter of the analysed period. Using the taxonomic method of linear ordering, based on a constructed synthetic indicator, the study carried out an analysis and assessment of the level of impact of the pandemic period on industrial activity in individual Polish voivodeships. In a further stage, changes in the spatial structure of industry in Poland were determined via a synthetic measure, using vector calculus. The results indicate that during the pandemic, the spatial structure of Polish industry did not undergo any permanent significant transformations and was characterized by high stability.