Moldova's National Statistics Bureau says over 33,000 employees hit by pandemic in first quarter of 2020

Chisinau, 24 June /MOLDPRES/ - The National Statistics Bureau (BNS) has published the results of an inquiry of labour force (AFM) for the first quarter of this year. According to the data, more than 33,000 employees were hit by the coronavirus pandemic.   

Statisticians said that, although the pandemic had started affecting the labour market only the end of the first quarter of 2020, the findings of the AFM investigation point out new situations, which appeared on the labour market with the starting of this pandemic. In the first quarter of this year, the number of people saying that their situation at the working place was hit because of COVID-19 stood at 33,200 or 4.1 per cent of the employed residents (3.7 per cent for men and 4.6 per cent for women).  

Thus, most of the affected people, 60.6 per cent, represent people who did not work at all/were absent from the working place; 28.4 per cent worked at home/carried out distance work; 25.5 per cent worked less hours per week; 8 per cent were transferred to a schedule of part-time work.  

The pandemic affected the situation at the working place for women fto a greater extent than for men.

The distribution according to the residence environment of these people is uniform: 50.5 per cent are from the urban environment and 49.5 per cent – the rural one. The  worst hit activities were trade (27.3 per cent) industry (24.8 per cent) and in education (15.4 per cent).