NAIROBI, Kenya Feb 9-Kenya has the highest percentage of businesses that remained operational throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa, a new survey has revealed.
According to the Africa MSME Pulse Survey by Geopoll, 49 per cent of businesses in Kenya remained operational during the pandemic.
Even so, a high number of Kenyan businesses(81 per cent) said they were negatively impacted by the pandemic.
The survey was conducted in December 2021, and included interviews with 312 MSMEs from Kenya (102), Nigeria (108), and South Africa (102).
In the study, South Africa had the smallest segment of businesses saying they were negatively impacted, although the percentage remains very high at 70 per cent.
Although certain types of businesses profited during the pandemic, only 10 per cent of the MSMEs claimed Covid-19 had a positive impact on their business.
A majority of the MSMEs surveyed (57 per cent) had to lay off, halt work, or reduce salaries for employees in the past two years and this was consistent across all countries.
“Despite many businesses resuming work to some extent, employment opportunities remain scarce as MSMEs try to recover lost time and revenue,” the survey noted.
Overall, 43 per cent of the MSMEs said they are not likely to hire or rehire staff in the next three months, with only a quarter saying they are very likely to fill positions.
Nigeria had the highest segment of respondents that express optimism about hiring soon at 36 per cent , while South Africa was at 14 per cent.
When asked how optimistic they are that their business conditions will improve in the next three months, the largest segment of MSMEs across all three countries (34 per cent) rate their optimism a 3 on a 5-point scale.
