After three and a half months of strict confinement to stop the spread of Covid-19, Peruvians are not rewarded for their efforts: the economy is exhausted, the job market in crumbs, and the number of patients reaches peaks .
A total of 333,867 people were infected and 12,229 died, making Peru the secondmost affected country, after Brazil, in Latin America and sixth in the world in number of cases. A sad record for a country of 32 million inhabitants, which claims to have practiced more tests than elsewhere (1,963,000).
Government recalls ad nauseam than quarantine, extended several times since March 16 and lifted Wednesday 1er July in half of the country’s regions, prevented the death of at least 100,000 people. At the cost of economic collapse.
In April, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) registered a historic drop of 40.5% compared to the same period in 2019, and the outlook for 2020 is not encouraging. According to World Bank projections, Peru will face the worst recession in the South American subcontinent, with a 12% drop in GDP. A direct consequence of the “Quarantine, among the strictest and longest in the world, which has put entire sections of the economy to a halt”, observes Pedro Francke, economist at the Catholic University of Peru.
Disorganization of the State
The effects are devastating for the job market. In the capital city of Lima alone, more than 2.3 million people lost their jobs during the confinement, according to the National Statistics Institute. Figures that do not even take into account the informal sector, which represents 70% of economic activity. This shows the extent of the crisis which is shaking the country.
However, confinement alone cannot explain the situation of a country whose economy has often been cited as an example of stability by the major global financial institutions. “Now is the time to understand that if macroeconomic stability and fiscal discipline are important and necessary, they are not enough”, says Hugo Nopo, an economist with the Development Analysis Group. “We had to invest in the labor market and, above all, in human capital, for health and education, where there was a glaring deficit of investments”, he adds.
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