Image credit: Samenta
PETALING JAYA: People with full-time jobs at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were considerably more susceptible to mental stress than those who were unemployed during the Covid-19 pandemic, a new study shows.
On average, they were up to 29 times more likely to suffer from anxiety than those who did not have a job, Nithya Sukilan, lead author of the “Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Small and Medium-size Enterprise Employees in Malaysia”, told FMT.
On the other hand, those who were unemployed at that time were two times more likely to be anxious than those with part-time jobs, including gig workers.
Nithya attributed the higher level of anxiety largely to the fear of getting infected and losing their source of income.
She said that during the pandemic, workers on daily wages and employees of small privately owned SMEs were those who “really suffered” during the pandemic.
Daily wage earners are those who hold down full time jobs but are paid on an hourly or daily basis.
Gig workers work on a temporary or flexible basis. They include freelancers and independent contractors.
Some daily wage earners may also engage in gig work but not all of them fall into this category.
Nithya said owners of SMEs or their full-time employees had higher levels of anxiety because many businesses, such as eateries, could not operate during the movement control order (MCO) as dining-in at restaurants and coffee shops was either highly restrictive or totally banned.
The first MCO was imposed on March 18, 2020 and MCO 2.0 was enforced on Jan 11, 2021 but it was lifted in less than a month.
Nithya said that even if the SMEs were allowed to resume business operations then, workers were anxious about going to work for fear of getting infected.
“During those days, if you were infected you had to go to a quarantine centre whether you had a mild, moderate or severe infection,” she said.
“That could affect your income and make you anxious about your own health,” she added.
Nithya said that while SMEs could hire full-time workers during the pandemic, many did not have the financial capacity to keep a full time staff like the bigger corporations.
The employees in these companies would then see pay cuts or be asked to work on a commission basis.
Nithya explained that when people are employed on a part-time basis, they accept the fact that there can be days when they will have no work and therefore no income.
On the other hand, she added, full-time workers and the self-employed always feel that they have a stable income stream.
Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2024/05/09/study-reveals-higher-anxiety-among-sme-workers-than-the-jobless-during-covid-19/