September 21, (THEWILL) – A joint report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nigeria and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown that 20 percent of full time workforce in Nigeria lost employment during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The report released on Tuesday, assessed the impact of COVID-19 on business enterprises in Nigeria.
“It is based on in-depth interviews with almost 3,000 businesses from both the formal and informal sectors across major industries of the economy”, UNDP and NBS said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
According to the statement, 80 percent of enterprises reported a decrease in production with a majority reporting a decline in production between 21 percent to 60 percent.
Against the backdrop of a decline in production of goods and services and an increase in operational costs, 55 per cent of business enterprises were utilising less than 60 percent of their capacity.
The report said, “to counter the impact of containment measures on operations, 77 per cent of business enterprises reported that they either reduced working hours, or either temporarily or permanently had to lay off workers.”
The findings also reveal a level of uncertainty plaguing enterprises around the country with 61 per cent of enterprises expressing low confidence in relation to outlook on the future, where their perception of their capacity to operate uninterrupted, under the current circumstances, was less than one year.
A small minority of businesses however reported positive gains during the pandemic with 19 percent of enterprises reporting increase in revenue with higher proportions of enterprises in the utilities, financial and insurance and human and health services sectors registered revenue gains over the course of the pandemic, compared to the year before.
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