The COVID-19 outbreak has not only taken lives the world over, but have also equally affected people's livelihoods.

A recent survey by the Statistics Department has found that almost half of those who lost their jobs during the Movement Control Order (MCO) to contain the outbreak, were self-employed Malaysians.

The survey, which involved 168,182 participants aged 15 and above, also showed that about 43% of self-employed people did not have enough money to last them beyond two weeks, while 28.4% said their cash reserves would only last one month.

While 46.6% of the self-employed respondents lost their jobs during the period, another 35.5% have had to settle by income reduced by over 90%.

The worst hit is the food and beverages sector, with 35.4% people losing their ricebowls, followed by fisheries and agriculture (33% and 21.9% respectively). About 18.7% people in logistics were also affected.

Given the circumstances, 81.9% of the self-employed surveyed said that they were not prepared for an extended MCO.

According to the survey, residents in 3 states, namely Sabah, Kelantan and Perlis are the most affected by the MCO.

The survey also took into account the employment tenure of the survey participants, in which about 69.7% of those who have worked for less than a year saying they barely had savings to last them a month.

The MCO was enforced on March 18 to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, and was supposed to last until March 31. It was later extended to April 14.

The government will announce tomorrow whether there will be another extension.


Source: FMT, NST
Photo source: FMT