Interaction of COVID-19 and Informal sector
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Date
2020
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Publisher
UMT Lahore
Abstract
COVID has spilled over to all the countries, sectors, and socioeconomic groups of the
communities in all over the world. Among all, some groups bear a larger chunk of burden. In
particular, those workers and economic units in the informal economy are likely to face
disproportionate impacts in terms of job and income losses. (Chacaltana, Lee, &
Vanhuynegem, 2020). Most of the economic activities are carried out in informal ways in
Lahore. Due to which a lot of problems occur for people and also for informal setup. Most of
the people associated with informal economy belong to lower middle class and meet their daily
needs on daily wages. Majority of the respondents in study area could hardly meet their needs
before COVID-19 such as food expenses, education expense, and housing and travel expenses.
Also, they face issues because of improper markets space allocated by the concerned authority
in the city. The situation became worst during COVID-19. As, to contain the spread of the
virus, the government of Pakistan imposed complete lockdown due to which it is difficult to
carry out any kind of informal economic activities. During lockdown economic activities were
halted because of impaired mobility, shortage of supply and decreased demand. Because of
informality and no documentation government faced issues in taking care of lower middle class
people. Although government initiated some relief programs to support the informal sector but
most of the respondents claimed that those programs did not benefit them. Respondents
showed low trust level in the relief measures taken by the government in response to COVID-
19.