In one year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 17 thousand jobs have been lost, which represents 4 percent of total jobs and more than 400 companies have closed in Yucatan, estimated the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Canaco) of Mérida.
Specifically, in the area of commerce, sales fell between 30 and 50 percent in most businesses, while in others it is up to 100 percent because to date they have not been able to work, said Iván Rodríguez Gasque, president of the business chamber.
According to the Canaco leader, April and May were the most complicated months for the sector, as it was when compulsory isolation was decreed; Starting in June, with the first reopening, there was a break for companies and the economy. In September the situation began to normalize.
From January 2020 to January 2021, according to data from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), there are more than 840 companies closed due to the health emergency, however, the figure is much higher if the informal trade represented by 60 percent of the economy.
In the same way, he said that more than 13 thousand jobs have been lost this year, also according to IMSS figures, which represents 4.5 percent of the state’s total jobs.
As for the work of the authorities, he highlighted the support of the Yucatan and Mérida governments, but it was not the same with the federal government, which practically abandoned the business sector during this health contingency.
For the businessman, this pandemic has helped businesses innovate in their ways of doing business, through digital platforms and electronic commerce, and this should be the way forward for the sector.
“You have to adapt to new realities, and with health protocols. Electronic commerce is the path that companies and social networks should follow ”, he indicated.
The main challenge for the state is to advance in the vaccination system, he said, since it is the real way out of the crisis that is being experienced. And companies must help to make this happen as soon as possible so that a better economic recovery can be achieved and employment sources can be maintained.
Jorge Abel Charruf Cáceres, president of the National Chamber of the Transformation Industry (Canacintra), Yucatán, indicated that the impact on jobs for the industry is not so much because it is mostly food and beverages, and their respective supply chains, that all classify as essential.
The industrialists made a great effort to maintain the workforce even with the drop in sales, he acknowledged.
“Normally industries, as most of them are, as I mentioned food and beverages, you have strict hygiene protocols, which means that these companies do not become sources of infection, the challenge is to replicate these hygiene protocols to other sectors of the industry”, he expressed.
Source: lajornadamaya.mx