Teachers, Workers Feel COVID-19’s Economic Pinch

By: Ahmad Tarek

@ahmadtarek98

 

The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, now in its fourth month, has significantly impacted the global economy, leading to massive unemployment and businesses shutting down. 

According to the BBC, the number of those filing for unemployment in the US has hit a new high, more than 26 million as of April of 2020. 

The biggest economic plummet is yet to come, Azhar University Economics Professor told The Caravan, and explained that it will happen in two segments..

“The virus affected people in one of two ways, financial and non-financial, the financial ramifications include people losing their jobs which in turn lead to a slowdown of the ‘wheel’ of economy,” he said.

This lead to a decrease in worker productivity, industrial output and eventually a decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“Workers’ productivity decreased because workers are either being laid off, getting infected or self quarantining at home,” Mansour said.

Mansour said that his teaching job and other public sector jobs had little to no impact financially since their wages are government paid and fixed.

Mohamed Ezzat, an elementary school Social Studies teacher at Saint Fatima school, said that work has decreased drastically, in contrast to a regular school day when he would be on campus from 8am. to 2pm every day.

“In the current lockdown I only go [to the school] once or twice a week for meetings with the school board,” Ezzat said.

He added that he has suffered financially because the school administration decided to cut salaries by 75 percent and only give employees EGP 2,000 instead of their usual EGP 8,000.

He also used to teach private sessions, like most school teachers in Egypt, from 5pm to 10pm. every day to make ends meet and to make up over three-quarters of his monthly income. But after the stay-at-home orders from the government began in mid-March in the wake of the pandemic’s outbreak, all tutoring sessions were cancelled.

“People are spending from their current savings and have nowhere near sufficient funds for future expenses and savings,” Ezzat said.

Restaurants and fast food chains have also been hit by the pandemic.

“All sales decreased by 80 percent approximately,” said Ahmed El Taher, owner and founder of “Mana’eesh,” an oriental diner serving pizza and pies.

He traced the decrease in sales to the fact that most of his customers were school and college students who would go grab their morning breakfast from his shop on their way to and from school or university every morning.

“Current sales are not enough to cover the employees’ wages so I had to let some of my employees go,” Taher said.

Other restaurants and cafes have chosen to shut down completely.