Socioeconomic Impact of Covid19 on Middle-Income Level Employee’s Behaviour: An Explorative Study on Restaurants of Hyderabad, Sindh

Abstract

In early 2020 a disease named Coronavirus (COVID-19), has affected the pattern of living and working, and thus has impacted the industrial sectors and organizations worldwide has created changes in working patterns, and has affected employees. Different organizations have adopted new working ways like working from home and teleworking. The research is conducted to examine hurdles created by the global coronavirus pandemic on hotel employees’ This paper reports the exploration and examines the fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on workers of restaurants about their families, career issues, behavioural changes, job insecurities, career optimism issues among working restaurant employees related to their mental health between those who are individuals employed in the prior time of covid 19 among the restaurant sectors in Hyderabad, Sindh. The findings have been gathered after analyzing qualitative data obtained through in-depth interviews and observations from the respondents. The respondents were affiliated with the hospitality industry and mostly served as waiters in restaurants. The gathered responses revealed that Covid-19 lockdown measures in the city of Hyderabad disproportionately affected the employees of restaurants on many levels. Among financial constraints, health and social vulnerabilities impacted their day-to-day life. The further burden was loaded upon them by job insecurity, temporary unemployment, career switches, and work-life imbalances.  The questionnaire developed to address the objectives of this research was mainly categorized into three themes. The three themes are career hurdles, economic challenges, and psychological and behavioral change. The following segment of the report will primarily represent and elaborate on the gathered responses in relation to the four themes.