Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Patricia Moreno-Mencia
Author-Name: Lidia Sánchez-Ruiz
Author-Name: David Cantarero Prieto
Author-Name: Paloma Lanza-León
Author-Name: Irene González-Rodríguez
Title:  Efectos económicos regionales de la COVID19 en los autónomos: el caso de Cantabria
Abstract: Resumen:El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar y estimar los
efectos que la crisis sanitaria desatada por la enfermedad COVID-19 tendrá
sobre los trabajadores autónomos en la Comunidad Autónoma de Cantabria a través
de la simulación de tres posibles escenarios de contingencia (base, favorable y
adverso). Los resultados obtenidos muestran que, si los
trabajadores autónomos afectados por las caídas de actividad económica se
diesen de baja en la Seguridad Social, esto equivaldría a una caída anual de
afiliación estimada en un 2,95% en el escenario base, un 0,43% en el favorable
y un 4,48% en el caso más desfavorable.  Abstract:
The
economic crisis that, as a consequence of the health pandemic, has been
unleashed, will affect to a greater extent the weakest groups of our labour
market. In this regard, self-employed workers may face a particularly dramatic
situation. Thus, due to the lock down measures established to mitigate the
advance of the coronavirus, at this time of uncertainty, millions of workers in
general, and self-employed in particular, have had to radically reduce their
economic activity, paralyzing numerous projects and/or jobs. Consequently,
their income has been suddenly and indefinitely reduced.
Given these
circumstances, at the present time, it is especially relevant to analyse the
effects that COVID-19 is generating on employment and, more particularly, on
the group of self-employed workers. Therefore, the objective of this work is to
analyse and estimate the effects that the health crisis unleashed by the
disease COVID-19 might have on self-employed workers in the Autonomous
Community of Cantabria through the simulation of three possible contingency
scenarios: base, favourable and adverse.
The
self-employed workers in Cantabria, at the end of April 2020, were 40,603. The
data for affiliation of self-employed workers that same month of the previous
year stood at 41,515 people, which means an annual fall of 2.2%. This decrease
is slightly higher than that which has taken place in the whole of the national
territory, where it has stood at 1.7%, which already indicates the degree of
impact that the health crisis is having on the business fabric of the region.
In this
study, it has been attempted, taking into consideration the situation of
unprecedented uncertainty in which we find ourselves at present, to carry out a
prospective exercise in which, as a counterfactual, a range of possible
predictions of self-employed membership decline is provided. Starting from this
premise, it is necessary to remember that any forecast is subject to various
hypotheses marked by the instability of the moment as well as the expected
development of slowdown in the activity of the self-employed based on the
evolution of the pandemic itself, the effectiveness of de-escalation and the
behaviour of the self-employed, among other determining factors. In accordance
with this reality, in this study the use of contingency scenarios is proposed
as a working methodology, which consists of using the socioeconomic context in
which we find ourselves today to estimate its impact in the future with the
least possible margin of error in this regard.
Thus,
various possible scenarios for the future are proposed, in which the situation
of self-employed workers could evolve in various ways depending on the vast
statistical information we have had to carry out for this study. Specifically,
the potential impact that could be derived from the (partial or total) halt of
activity of this group has been estimated, taking as reference the 40,603
self-employed members in Cantabria in April 2020. Each of the scenarios
includes possible falls in activity in each of the branches defined in the
National Classification of Economic Activities (CNAE 2009). In this way, it is
possible to analyse the estimated reduction in membership for each month that
activity is paralyzed or reduced. Our main hypothesis is that, if the
self-employed workers affected by declines in economic activity unsubscribed
from Social Security, this would be equivalent to an annual decline in
enrolment estimated at 2.95% in the base scenario, 0.43% in the favourable and
4.48% in the adverse case.
Finally,
the potential impact has been estimated through this starting point, taking
into account a certain level of "anesthesia" in the current economic
scenario by many economic agents that, having public aid and despite the delay
in the perception of some of them, have not perceived the full depth of the
recession that is coming yet. Thus, the potential fall in the “Self-employed
workers Special System” membership is calculated if these reductions were
hypothetically sustained for twelve months cumulatively over time given that
there is currently no Covid-19 vaccine, no effective treatment, and we are not
near the optimum level of group immunity. Therefore, the appearance of possible
outbreaks is not ruled out; and, so far, we might only guess when or how hard
they might be. In this sense, given this counterfactual analysis exercise and
with all the exceptions mentioned above as a "roller coaster" mode,
the reduction of self-employed workers in Cantabria in this context of
prolonged activity halt would move between 35.99 % in the baseline scenario,
5.20% in the favourable and 53.75% in the most pessimistic.
All these
results lead us to conclude that resilience, a characteristic so intrinsic to
the self-employed worker, is a key piece in order to understand the current
situation of this group in Cantabria. It is, therefore, the innate skills of
the self-employed such as their confidence, self-knowledge of strengths,
tenacity and flexibility that will make them overcome this economic crisis that
is presumed to be long, complex and with still rather uncertain final
consequences.
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Impacto económico, Covid19, Autónomos, Escenarios, Cantabria, Economic Impact of Tourism, Self-Employed
Pages: 17-53
Volume: 1
Year: 2023
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2643.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:1:y:2023:p:17-53