Coronavirus

Pandemic: at least 716,000 businesses have closed for good

According to a survey conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 1.3 million businesses have suspended activities since the arrival of the coronavirus in Brazil. At least 716,400 of them have gone out of business for good.

Only 13 percent of those companies that went out of business had access to financial support from the federal government to assist them with expenses incurred during the health crisis. Meanwhile, 522,700 business owners had to shut down due to the economic scenario caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Small businesses suffered by far the most, making up 99.8 percent (715,100) of those which went out of business during the pandemic. The remaining 0.2 percent were medium-sized companies, with no large enterprises mentioned in the study. 

These figures suggest a post-pandemic market in which companies are increasingly faced with a survival-of-the-fittest scenario, with small to medium-sized firms facing the sharp end of the negative consequences brought about by Covid-19, as previously covered by The Brazilian Report.

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Rafael Lima

Rafael is a Communication student at Wake Forest University, and a student fellow of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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