Covid-19 Impact On Jobs
By now, we all are familiar with COVID-19 which is a new illness that can affect our lungs and airways. It's caused by a virus called Coronavirus. The novel coronavirus is a new strain of virus that has not been identified in human so far.
The whole world is getting affected by this epidemic from our health to our economy growth. With new positive cases every day in most of the countries right from Asia, Middle East to Europe COVID-19 has become one of the major concern for all. Government of all the countries are taking extra steps and precautions to control the rapid spread of the virus.
One of the extreme step is the lockdown of more and more countries to prevent the spread of coronavirus with growing concerns about how to deal with the economic crisis caused by this major slowdown in productivity and revenue of all businesses globally.
The origin of the outbreak of COVID-19 is from China which is one of the largest business industry hub. Being world’s largest exporter, the lockdown of the country is expected to have significant impact on the global economy including economic slowdown, trade, supply chain disruption, commodities, and logistics.
As per Global Times, the world's second-most populous country with 1.3 billion people had reported just over 130 coronavirus cases and three deaths till 17 March. Currently, India is on top 10 economy affected countries. One of the reason China being its biggest business supplier and exporter right from electronics, consumer durables, auto components and pharma bulk drugs. Also about 18 per cent of India's merchandise is being imported from China.
As COVID 19 is spreading via human touch or social contact, it is directly impacting all types of business in India be it Enterprise, Retails / Whole sales business, Online delivery sector, Food industry, Travel Business, Entertainment and many more. Extreme measures like lockdown of school colleges, malls, gyms and other business sectors that includes huge number of crowds have also added to a decline of revenue in all these business sectors.
As per a FICCI report, a significant 53 per cent of Indian businesses indicate the marked impact of the coronavirus pandemic on business operations even at early stages. Along with that, businesses are witnessing less cash flow due to slowing economic activity. This in the coming days is likely to effect the citizens directly with delay salary, increase price in commodities, additional charges in transport or logistic and many more.
If we talk sectorise then travel, tourism and hotel industries are some of the worst-affected sectors due to travel bans, social distancing and suspension of business activities. While other related sectors like fuel minerals, electricity and water and rubber, plastic, coke and petroleum products, etc are also likely to be impacted or witness a downfall in the revenue.
Again, with the current scenario with Europe being the new epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, exports to the European Union which is one of India’s exports destination, are bound to be affected.
Additionally, the digital payment sector is witnessing an increase in number of transactions giving a boost to it sector. ePaisa as a point of sale player has witnessed more merchants using POS features to decrease manual work and human touch through digital payment, digital analytic report etc.
But, if the COVID-19 epidemic continues and won’t be controlled we would also witness job loses specially in jewellery, handicraft or textile sectors which includes manual work with a downfall in those sectors as well.
