Evaluation of the Impact of Covid-19 on SMEs: Cross-Country Comparison

Abstract

Covid-19 is an external crisis with unclear economic consequences. However, it is well known that due to the nature of the pandemic, several countries' businesses have been severely harmed by lockdowns. This study attempted to explain how Covid-19 has changed the employment of small and medium businesses with various demographic variables for this purpose. Furthermore, business continuity and digitization were investigated. The study's data was collected from the Data for God project, which was run by the World Bank, the OECD, and Facebook. As a result of the research, more than half of the workers laid off due to COVID-19 could not be rehired for about two years. In terms of business continuity, only 46.2 percent of businesses believe they can continue operations for a year or more. In addition, digital sales decreased in some European countries during this period.