Estimating the Effects of COVID-19 on Households and Firms in Jordan

FromMay 19, 2022 To May 19, 2022

Online Webinar

The outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has left a profound impact on the global economy. Currently, countries all over the world are facing an incredible challenge in trying to assess the extent of the economic shocks and pave the road to recovery.

Prior to the pandemic, Jordan already had the third lowest rate of employment in the world, with particularly low employment rates for youth and women (Assaad, Krafft and Keo, 2019). This was further exacerbated by the onset of the pandemic, reshaping Jordan’s labour market including firms, households, household enterprises, farmers, and Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods of residents of Jordan is imperative in designing adequate policy responses. Against this backdrop, the ERF and FCDO have initiated a collaboration in an effort to study the perceived impact of the pandemic. The COVID-19 MENA Monitor Survey was developed, which is a series of wide-ranging, nationally representative panel phone surveys targeting individuals with mobile phones aged 18-64, covering a number of Arab countries in the MENA Region, including Jordan. The COVID-19 MENA Monitor also included a firm panel survey targeting private sector firms with 6-199 workers prior to the start of the COVID-19 crisis (in February 2020). Simultaneously, the analysis extends the household survey using firm-level data by looking at the key findings collected on small and medium enterprises.

The objective of the webinar is to provide a platform to present the findings and key messages amongst experts and national stakeholders, in addition to discuss different policy implications.

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This research project and its related publications are funded by the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this publications are entirely those of the author(s), they do not reflect the views of the Economic Research Forum, or the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and should not be attributed to them accordingly.