Recovery of Small Business

(1) Recovery of small businesses in Philippines - an uphill task (2021, February 16).
TheStar.

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/02/16/recovery-of-
small-businesses-in-philippines---an-uphill-task

In a news article by TheStar (2021), The Economic Planning Secretary Karl Chua
stated that the pandemic definitely had an immense impact and it is testing our
economy. He also believes that the nation is starting to show signs that it will recover
early just by the rules from the government on social restrictions or contact-lessening.
Vaccines are the hope of the economy for its recovery since it will result in a grant to
have lesser restrictions and social distancing guidelines, making it look like a lot more
like the normal pre-pandemic era. “As a result, a lot of hope is placed on a successful
vaccination programme. By the end of 2020, the government aims to have vaccinated
70% of the population, which should offer enough herd immunity to nullify the risks
of the remaining 30%.” (“Recovery of small businesses in Philippines,” 2021) Quick
financing, also called alternative lending, is a way of loaning money to small
businesses, is playing a supportive role in resolving a significant problem to small-
and-medium enterprises, cash flow, alternative money loaning demand rose. The
Coronavirus pandemic also became the key to the boost of technological adaptation, a
lot of businesses required employees to work from home. Technologies on businesses
bloomed during the pandemic, people learned to used remote work to effectively
communicate and manage nearly as close to on-site working; social distancing was
still applied and it limits the spread of the virus. Social distancing, restrictions, and
adapting to change and technological method of working played a huge part on the
Philippines’ recovery, especially for small businesses affected during the pandemic.
Although our nation’s recovery is not that quick, we could still see signs that
businesses can cope and adjust to the new normal while we are moving forward to
make it back to normal, soon.

(2) Zhang, T., Gerlowski, D., & Acs, Z. (2021, Apr 25). Working from home: small
business performance and the COVID-19 pandemic. Small Bus Econ. 2022; 58(2):
611–636.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068780/
According to Zhang, T., Gerlowski, D., & Acs, Z (2021), the work from home set-up
helps the small businesses perform better with industry differences and continues to
be convenient after the stay-at-home rules has ended. Bartik, Cullen, et al. (2020)
report that 45% of firms have at least some workers teleworking during the COVID-
19 pandemic, and over 1/3 of those firms believe that WFH will remain suitable at
their businesses after the pandemic. Gallup Panel (2020) revealed that the percentage
for work from home American workers doubled to over 60% between mid-March and
early April 2020, and 59% US workers who have been teleworking during the
pandemic would prefer to continue work from home set-up as much as possible, once
public health limitations are lifted (Breman, 2020). Small businesses are the ones
fragile during the pandemic, and this work from home set-up would be a benefit and
will help the performance of micro businesses if it is not expensive. “The performance
of small businesses may be measured in several ways. We adopt four measures:
changes in operating revenues, disruptions in the supply chain, temporary closures,
and cash flow positions. Closures have important implications for the US workforce;
cash flow positions often signal time-to-failure for small businesses; operating
revenue directly measure business income; disruptions in supply-chain is a sign of
challenges posed by issues at other businesses and have implications about the
economy as a whole” (Buffington et al., 2020). Jobs in sectors like Educational
Services and Professional Services are most probable to be done at home, while
nonagricultural sectors like Accommodation and Food Services, Retail Trade, and
Construction jobs are least probable to be done at home. It was stated that work from
home could be a double-edged sword, bringing accessibility and better work-family
balance to employees but also mostly blurs the boundaries between work and family.
During the pandemic, we already adapted to changes, especially in business and
technologies, after the vaccines take effect and the pandemic is over, it will leave a
question on our mind if we will be coming back to normal with on-site working and
forget about what we have adapted during the pandemic only to possibly face the
changes we learned a long time ago when we need it again. A work from home set-up
would not only be a benefit to businesses in surviving during the pandemic but also a
new mode of working efficiently after the end of Coronavirus.

Impact of Pandemic to Micro Businesses

(3) Mejico, L. (2020, August 12). Gov’t funds not sufficient to aid micro, small
businesses struck down by pandemic. Rappler.

https://www.rappler.com/moveph/funds-not-sufficient-aid-micro-small-
businesses-pandemic/
According to a news article from Rappler by Mejico, L. (2020), The absence of
government support is also a reason why small business proprietors are left with no
other choice but to stop their services or shop. Micro, small, and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) are expected to obtain an assistance from the government to get back up
from their huge financial loss, but 5 months have passed since the beginning of
lockdown and no support has been felt by these businesses. There was even a printing
shop in Calabarzon located at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños that has
decided to stop their operations after providing services to students for 14 years. The
printing shop had a great loss of revenue after the shift of universities to a new mode
of learning (distance learning) and it forced them to stop their shop operations. “Since
the lockdown was too long, there was no mode of transportation, people were
not allowed to go out, our main market, the students of UPLB, shifted from physical
classes to online classes; we really had no chance to acquire an income,” said Henry
Ramirez, the printing shop owner. The printing shop really does not want to terminate
their business that easy, so they asked for financial assistance from the Department of
Trade and Industry (DTI) by applying for a capital loan. They became hopeless when
they received an unfortunate news from the DTI saying that their loan application was
declined because the government was running out of funds.