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ISLAMABAD: Around 53 percent households faced financial implications, 37 percent of working population i.e. 20.63 million lost their jobs/could not work while 12 percent i.e. 6.7 million experienced reductions in incomes due to closure of business owing to the Covid-19 lockdowns in Pakistan.

This has been revealed in a special survey conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) for evaluating socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on the well-being of the people.

Data was collected electronically through tablets from 500 primary sampling units (PSUs) with 70 percent urban and 30 percent rural share.

The period of field enumeration of this survey was from 20th October 2020 to 5th November 2020. Results were prepared within one month of data collection.

The survey found that almost half of the working population was badly affected due to closure of business and lockdown owing to the Covid-19.

The daily wagers (usually construction workers), casual workers and the people who were own account workers in non-agriculture sectors such as shop keepers, street vendors, taxi divers, were the most-affected portion.

This implies that majority affected i.e. 74 percent, relates to the informal sector and proved to be most vulnerable to these kinds of shocks.

The survey noted that four most-affected industries in terms of jobs lost are manufacturing, construction, transport, storage, wholesale, and retail trade.

However, when the situation of workers inside the industries was analysed, it was found that workers of the construction sector were hit the worst by the shock as almost 80 percent of the workers either lost their jobs or faced decrease in income, followed by workers of the manufacturing sector, where 72 percent workers faced either job lost or a decrease in income. These results depict that 46 percent of the total shock in the economy is due to closure of manufacturing and construction sector.

Analysing the distribution of affected working population by occupation, it is revealed that works in elementary occupations (labour in agriculture, mining, hotel and restaurant, hawkers, vendors etc) were badly shaken with 36 percent work force lost their jobs/could not work during the Covid period followed by service workers/sales workers with 26 percent.

Craft and related trade worker is the third-most affected occupation group in which 18 percent working population faced job loss.

Observing the incidence of affected workers by occupation, it is evident that 72 percent workers in craft/related, and plant and machine operators/assemblers were severely affected, and 57 percent and 52 percent of both occupations lost their jobs during the Covid-19 period (first wave), respectively.

The other higher incidences of affected workers are in service workers/shop sales workers and elementary occupations, where 45 percent and 42 percent lost their jobs. Least-affected occupation was related to agriculture with only nine percent.

Households in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 64 percent income reduction, percentage is higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas with 67 percent and 63 percent respectively.

This may be because of fact that one of the main sources of income in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is domestic or foreign remittances, which declined due to closure of work.

Households in Sindh are the second-most affected with 59 percent followed by Balochistan with 51 percent and Punjab with 49 percent.

Results revealed that severe food insecurity in the country has been increased to 10 percent during Covid period as compared to approximately three percent, while 30 percent of the households reported moderate food insecurity as compared to 13 percent.

However, 60 percent of the households remained food secure during the Covid period.

Severe food insecurity is higher in urban areas with 13 percent as compared to rural areas with eight percent.

Moderate food insecurity is also higher in urban areas with 33 percent than in rural areas with 30 percent.

Provincial comparison depicts that highest percentage of households in Sindh with 52 percent faced moderate and severe food insecurity, followed by the Punjab and Balochistan with 39 percent.

However, households in Balochistan province faced highest severe food insecurity with 13 percent while households in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province faced lowest severe food insecurity with five percent.

It is found that only 37 percent of the households did not perceive the financial impact of the Covid-19 on general well being of household during the Covid period, however, 26 percent of the households reported to perceive mild shock, however, 36 percent of the households reported that they face either moderate, high or severe financial impact of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Observing the households by wealth quintiles, it was found that highest percentage of households in richest quintile i.e. 56 percent did not perceive any shock as compared to only 25 percent of the poorest households.

However, its trend is opposite in highly and severely affected where only four and one percent are affected in richest class as compared to 26 and six percent in the poorest class.

Analysing results by provinces, it is revealed that households in Punjab are at highest on reporting no financial impact of Covid-19 lockdowns with 45 percent, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 31 percent. However, highest percentage of households in Balochistan and Sindh reported to have an impact on their livelihoods with 57 and 56 percent (moderately, highly or severely) respectively.

To cope up with the situation, the most adopted strategy observed is reducing non-food expenditure (i.e., clothing, footwear, health etc) with 54 percent followed reduction of food expenses (either switching to lower quality or reducing the quantity) with 50 percent, which is also is evident from the fact that food insecure households increased during the Covid-19 as compared to 2018-2019.

It is observed that almost 47 percent of the households along with other coping strategies used their savings/investments/sold property to tackle the situation, which clearly indicates the gravity of the situation.

Besides that almost one-third of households reported that they borrow money from friends and family, whereas, 12 percent reported they delayed the payment of already taken loan.

Due to economic crisis, eight percent households reported that they have not paid the monthly fees of school children resulting in discontinuation of the education of their children.

This situation is very critical as 30 percent children 5-16 years are already out of school.

Analysing by wealth quintiles also reveals the severity of the situation, where it is clear that poorest, and households from second and middle, cope with the situation by reducing their food and non-food expenditures or spent their savings or by selling their productive assets taking loans while majority of rich used reduction in non-food expenditure or spent their savings/investments.

The results indicates that overall 33 percent of the households i.e. approximately 17.07 million households received assistance during the Covid period.

Out of which, 19 percent of the assistance is being provided by the government sector, while the private sector assistance is reported as 18 percent.

The share of NGOs is two percent only.

However, out of 33 percent, 5.5 percent households had received assistance both from the government and the private sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

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