Private wage workers, especially those hired informally, faced substantially more challenges related to layoffs/suspensions and wage reductions in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia than in Morocco. With the exception of Morocco, more of those who lost jobs early in the pandemic were regaining employment over the course of 2021. The evidence suggests that aggregate labour market indicators, such as labour force participation, employment and unemployment rates, were recovering in the first half of 2021, except in Morocco where the progress made earlier in the year later reversed. The tourist and transport industries were the hardest hit in all four countries, with tourism-related industries the most negatively affected in terms of closures, reduced hours and revenue losses. Despite relatively strong recoveries in Morocco and Tunisia in the first half of 2021, their economies, as well as that of Jordan, remained depressed relative to pre-pandemic levels. In contrast, Tunisia experienced a large economic contraction of 8.8% and Morocco likewise contracted 6.3%, while Jordan’s economy contracted by 1.6%. But while Egypt gradually loosened its closure measures in 2021, Morocco, like Jordan and Tunisia, maintained more stringent measures than the world average.Įgypt was also the only one among the four countries that managed to maintain a positive economic growth rate of 1.5% in 2020. Health and economic outcomes in the pandemicĪmong the four countries, Jordan and Tunisia experienced much higher rates of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the first half of 2021 than either Egypt or Morocco. Household and enterprise surveys were conducted in Sudan as part of the same series, but are not discussed here. Two waves of the enterprise surveys were conducted in each of the four countries corresponding to the first and second quarter of 2021. Two waves were conducted in Egypt and Jordan centred around February and June 2021.
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The household surveys are the main source of information on how households, workers and microenterprises experienced the pandemic, whereas the enterprise surveys focused on the experience of small and medium enterprises (those with between six and 199 workers) in February 2020 (pre-pandemic).įour waves of the household survey were conducted in Morocco and Tunisia centred around November 2020, February 2021, April 2021 and June 2021. The surveys were conducted by telephone on a panel of firms and enterprises. The analysis is based on the COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household and Enterprise Surveys conducted by ERF over the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 (OAMDI – Open Access Micro Data Initiative, 2021a, 2021b). Household and enterprise surveys during the pandemic In two recently published policy briefs, we examine how workers and firms have fared in the first half of 2021 in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia (Krafft et al, 2021, 2022).
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With the Covid-19 pandemic on the verge of its third year, Middle East and North African (MENA) economies are recovering from the slump caused by lockdowns and other economic disruptions, but households and firms are still experiencing steep income and revenue losses well into the pandemic’s second year. The reach of policies supporting firms was also limited with up to three-quarters of small and medium enterprises reporting they had not applied for or received any government assistance firms in Jordan and Morocco were experiencing more difficulty than firms in Egypt and Tunisia in the first quarter of 2021.
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Assistance was generally well targeted, reaching lower-income households more often than higher-income households. Social support reached a relatively limited fraction of the population, except in Jordan. Despite some recovery in levels of economic activity and employment, households and firms in the Middle East and North Africa were still experiencing steep income and revenue losses well into the pandemic’s second year.