Economic impact of coronavirus COVID-19 Philippines 2020

In a survey conducted in the Philippines in February 2020, about 65 percent of respondents expected the national economy to be significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationwide lockdowns imposed by the government have adversely impacted people’s livelihood.

COVID-19 pandemic aftermath in the Philippines

Between March and April 2020, the country’s Luzon Island went into a complete lockdown that restricted population movement with only a few exceptions. This resulted in a drastic decline in employment levels, with projections suggesting a maximum of one million people losing their jobs due to the lockdown. In addition, the imposed community quarantine would, at the very least, cause cumulative losses in gross value added of three billion Philippine pesos in every select key sector in the country.

Major economic sectors facing setbacks

With travel being a major contributing factor to the spread of the virus, the tourism industry worldwide has been brought to a grinding halt. The Philippines relies on tourism to a large extent for revenue generation and calculated a loss of GDP share  from tourism of about 0.68 percent in the worst case. Another sector to be severely hit was international trade, causing a spillover effect from Chinese supply disruptions to the Philippines. Hence, it was estimated that the communication equipment industry would lose 115 million U.S. dollars due to supply disruption.