Monrovia – A phone survey conducted by the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) has revealed that the global Coronavirus pandemic is having an adverse effect on the local population and businesses.
According to LISGIS, which Friday, August 7, launched the first phase of its Liberia Covid-19 High Frequency Phone Monitoring Survey (HFPMS), said that during the period June 6 – 27, 2020, it interviewed 806 firms and 1,920 households across Liberia to monitor the impacts of COVID-19 and its related containment measures on firms and households in order to provide information for policy response.
“As the pandemic gathered pace since the country registered its index case on March 16, 2020, LISGIS, with the support of the World Bank, launched the Liberia COVID-19 High Frequency Phone Monitoring Survey (HFPMS). HFPMS is a nationally representative panel survey. A sample of 806 firms was selected from the Liberia Business Registry (2018-2019) and the 2017 National Establishments Census databases. For households, a sample of 1920 households was obtained from the sample list of the 2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES),” Mr. Boima Sonii, Director, Division of Economic Statistics, LISGIS, said.
Providing more details of the survey report, Sonii stated further that the HFPM survey consisted of two modules: “Module A focused on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households; Module B the impact on firms in Liberia. Both of these modules will continue to be conducted periodically (for a total of 6 rounds) from June to December, 2020.”
He further added that firms, especially large and medium-sized businesses, have halted or continued operations at reduced capacity. The survey findings show that 63% of large businesses were temporarily closed, 13% permanently closed and only a scanty 4.2% remained fully operational. Medium-size enterprises have also been slammed hard as about 32% of them were temporarily closed during the containment period.
“Firms’ revenue generation has dramatically decreased, supply chain hampered, profit dipped, and a significant number of workers laid off while some experienced wages cut. Large firms have 33% of employees fired and about 38% had pay reduction. 71.4% of big businesses surveyed had either failed to pay or recourse to wage reduction. Trade and industry sectors are the worst hit with 62.6% and 65.7% of firms affected, respectively. Businesses in the industry sector saw about 40% of their workforce either temporarily or permanently laid off.”
LISGIS said the pandemic has thrown businesses in turmoil. Workforce, supply chain, sales and profit projection have gotten more uncertain. Expectation of the workforce indicates that about 5% of large firms anticipate reduction in employees and 11% of the small businesses expect similar situations. Although trade has a majority of the workforce, about 11% of firms in that sector revealed they anticipate dismissing some employees. Half of the medium firms (48%) and majority of the large businesses (71%) are uncertain about the short-term forecast.
Meanwhile, LISGIS is recommending that for any business to stay afloat in this Covid-19 pandemic, deploying mobile and digital platforms by firms could boost sales. “However, approximately 85% of businesses surveyed indicated there were no benefits with the use of mobile tools and digital platforms since some are new and require extensive marketing and face-face transactions with clients are still popular.”
For households, LISGIS survey reveals that the pandemic has created a precarious livelihood situation and wrecked households’ welfare. The findings revealed that 75.3% of the households surveyed lost jobs, while 67.5% of households reported loss of income since the outbreak. Food situation was made even direr by an increase in the prices of major food items as reported by 66.4% of the households.
“There have been grave concerns on the overall food situation in Liberia during the pandemic. 83.8% of households worried about not having enough food to eat as a result of lack of money or other resources; 75.1% of households had adults skipped a meal. The effects of food insecurity on household diet and nutrition are troubling since 75.2% of households are unable to eat food with good diet and nutrients.”
The report further gathers that some of those surveyed had disclosed that in order to cope with the situation, they had to include reduction in food consumption (40.9%), while 22.3% relied on savings. 20.4% of households indicated they engaged in additional income generating activities.
“Other than schools’ closure, interestingly, the effect of covid-19 on education remains less severe. 62% of households reported that their children completed assignments provided by teachers. Regarding online learning, only a paltry 1.2% of households use mobile Learning Applications as medium for children’s learning.
Meanwhile, LISGIS disclosed that it is preparing for the second round of HFPMS, which it said detailed thematic reports for all rounds including one on the survey methodology will be released as soon as they are ready and also be posted at LISGIS’ website.
The report was officially launched by Mrs. Mariah Q. Gilayaneh, Deputy for Administration, LISGIS.