Situation of the non-financial enterprises in the state of emergency and the ensuing epidemic situation in August 2020

The National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria conducted for the sixth time short business survey amongst non-financial enterprises aiming to collect and present to the society and policy makers information on the economic effects from the declared state of emergency and the ensuing epidemic situation in the country due to COVID-19.

Amongst the enterprises that responded, 37.6% declared a decrease in revenues from sales of goods and services in August compared to July 2020, 49.0% declared no change and 12.8% an increase.

The breakdown by economic sectors showed that 44.8% of the non-financial enterprises in Industry had a decrease in revenues from sales of goods and services. For the activities ‘Arts, entertainment and recreation, repair of household goods and other services’ this share was 37.9%, for the ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; transportation and storage; food service activities’ - 36.0% and for the ‘Construction’ - 35.4%.

As regards the employees, 27.6% from the responding non-financial enterprises answered that they had to use ‘paid leave’ as a measure for reducing the effects from the state of emergency and the epidemic situation, followed by ‘unpaid leave’ - 11.5% and ‘teleworking’ - 9.4%. Lay-off of employees was done by 7.9% from responding enterprises.

In the following month 94.5% from the surveyed non-financial enterprises, expect that they will be able to continue their current activity, 2.0% expect to stop to perform economic activity temporary, while 1.8% expect to close down their business.