Heavy toll on businesses during 2020
The cost of the first year of the coronavirus pandemic was heavy in terms of the turnover of the largest sectors of economic activity, but also employment, especially salaried labor, as stems from the comparison of the data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) in 2019 and 2020.
Some sectors – for example organized food retailing (supermarkets) – benefited from the first year of the pandemic, which translated into an increase in turnover of around 10% and also showed a significant increase of employment. However, the overall impact of the coronavirus on the size of businesses, which saw over 28 billion euros lost in turnover, was significantly negative.
At the same time, although there was the beneficial measure of the suspension of employment contracts (furlough), in 2020 there were 168,834 fewer salaried jobs at companies located in Greece compared to 2019.
In this ELSTAT data concerning the structure of companies, all sectors of economic activity are included except agriculture and personal services. In other words, they incorporate the sectors of trade, industry, construction and part of the service sector.
